by Scalzi, John
“Christ,” Rybicki said. “We’re not in a goddamn schoolyard. You’re gambling with the lives of these colonists.”
“And this is different from what the CU did how?” I asked.
“Because you don’t have the authority,” Rybicki said. “You don’t have the right.”
“The Colonial Union has the right to gamble with the lives of these colonists?” I asked. “It has the right to place them in the path of an enemy military who means to destroy them? These aren’t soldiers, General. They’re civilians. Some of our people are religious pacifists. You made sure of that. The Colonial Union may have had the authority to put these people in harm’s way. But it sure as hell didn’t have the right.”
“Have you ever heard of Coventry?” Rybicki said.
“The English city?” I asked.
Rybicki nodded. “In the Second World War, the British learned through intelligence that their enemies were going to bomb the town. They knew when it was going to happen. But if they evacuated the town they’d reveal that they knew the enemies’ secret code, and they would lose their ability to listen in on the enemies’ plans. For the good of all of Britain they let the bombing happen.”
“You’re saying Roanoke is the Colonial Union’s Coventry,” Jane said.
“I’m saying that we have an implacable enemy who wants us all dead,” Rybicki said. “And that we have to look at what’s best for humanity. All of humanity.”
“This assumes that what the Colonial Union does is what’s best for all of humanity,” I said.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but what it does is better than what anyone else has planned for humanity,” Rybicki said.
“But you don’t think that what the Colonial Union is doing is what’s best for all humanity,” Jane said.
“I didn’t say that,” Rybicki said.
“You’re thinking it,” Jane said.
“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” Rybicki said.
“I know precisely what you’re thinking,” Jane said. “I know you’re here to tell us that the Colonial Union doesn’t have ships or soldiers to defend us. I know you know that there are ships and soldiers for our defense but that they’ve been assigned to roles you find redundant or nonessential. I know you’re supposed to deliver a convincing lie to us about that. That’s why you’re here personally, to give the lie a personal touch. And I know it disgusts you that you’re being made to do this, but that it disgusts you even more that you’ve allowed yourself to do it.”
Rybicki stared at Jane, mouth open. So did I.
“I know you think the Colonial Union is acting stupidly in sacrificing Roanoke to the Conclave. I know you know that there are already plans to use our loss for recruiting among the colonies. I know you think that recruiting from the colonies makes them more vulnerable to attack, not less, because now the Conclave will have a reason to target civilian populations in order to cut down the number of potential soldiers. I know you see this as an endgame for the Colonial Union. I know you think the Colonial Union will lose. I know you fear for me and John, for this colony, and for yourself, and for all of humanity. I know you think there’s no way out.”
Rybicki sat in silence for a long moment. “You seem to know a lot,” he said, finally.
“I know enough,” Jane said. “But now we need to hear all of this from you.”
Rybicki looked over to me, and back to Jane, He sagged and shifted uncomfortably. “What can I tell you that you don’t seem to know already?” he said. “The Colonial Union has nothing for you. I argued for them to give you something, anything”—he looked over to Jane to see if she would acknowledge the truth of this, but she only stared impassively—“but they’ve made the decision to hold the line at the more developed colonies. I was told it was a more strategic use of our military strength. I don’t agree, but it’s not an indefensible argument to make. Roanoke isn’t the only newer colony left exposed.”
“We’re just the one that’s known to be targeted,” I said.
“I’m supposed to give you a reasonable story for the lack of defenses,” Rybicki said. “The one I settled on was that your sending your plea for help with compromised encryption put our ships and soldiers at risk. This has the advantage of possibly being true”—he looked sharply at Jane when he said this—“but it’s primarily a cover story. I didn’t come just to give it a convincing touch. I came because I felt I owed it to you to say it to your faces.”
“I don’t know how to feel about the fact you’re more comfortable lying to us up close than far away,” I said.
Rybicki smiled a bitter smile. “In retrospect, it appears not to have been one of my best decisions.” He turned back to Jane. “I still want to know how you knew all this.”
“I have my sources,” Jane said. “And you’ve told us what we need to know. The Colonial Union has cut us loose.”
“It wasn’t my decision,” Rybicki said. “I don’t think it’s right.”
“I know,” Jane said. “But that doesn’t really matter at this point.”
Rybicki looked to me for a more sympathetic view. He didn’t get one.
“What do you plan to do now?” he asked.
“We can’t tell you,” Jane said.
“Because you don’t trust me,” Rybicki said.
“Because the same source that lets me know what you’re thinking will let someone else know what we’re planning,” Jane said. “We can’t afford that.”
“But you’re planning something,” Rybicki said. “You used a cracked encryption to send us a message. You wanted it to be read. You’re trying to draw someone here.”
“It’s time for you to go, General,” Jane said.
Rybicki blinked, unused to being dismissed. He got up and went to the door, turning back to us as he got to it. “Whatever you two are doing, I hope it works,” he said. “I don’t know how it will all turn out if you manage to save this colony. But it’s got to be better than how it turns out if you don’t.” He left.
I turned to Jane. “You need to tell me how you did that,” I said. “How you got that information. You didn’t share that with me before.”
“I didn’t have it before,” she said, and tapped her temple. “You told me that General Szilard said that he gave me the full range of command functions. One of those command functions, in the Special Forces at least, is the ability to read minds.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Think about it,” Jane said. “When you have a BrainPal, it learns to read your thoughts. That’s how it works. Using it to read other people’s thoughts is just a software issue. Generals in the Special Forces have access to their soldiers’ thoughts, although Szilard told me most of the time it’s not very useful, since people are thinking about pointless things. This time, it came in handy.”
“So anyone who has a BrainPal can have their thoughts read,” I said.
Jane nodded. “And now you know why I couldn’t come to Phoenix Station with you. I didn’t want to give anything away.”
I motioned toward the door Rybicki had just stepped out of. “You just gave it away to him,” I said.
“No,” Jane said. “He doesn’t know I’ve been enhanced. He’s just wondering who on his staff leaked, and how it got to me.”
“You’re still reading his mind,” I said.
“Haven’t stopped since he landed,” Jane said. “Won’t stop until he’s gone.”
“What’s he thinking now?” I asked
“He’s still thinking about how I knew that information,” Jane said. “And he’s thinking about us. He’s hoping we succeed. That part wasn’t a lie.”
“Does he think we will?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Jane said.
The beam turrets focused on the incoming missiles and fired, but there were too many missies to focus on; the turrets went up in excessive blast that flung debris across the fields in which they were located, some distance from Croatoan.
“I’
m getting a message,” Jane said, to me and Trujillo. “It’s an order to stop fighting and to prepare for a landing.” She paused. “I’m being told that any further resistance will result in a complete carpet-bombing of the colony. I’m being asked to acknowledge the message. Failure to reply within about a minute will be taken as defiance and bombing will proceed.”
“What do you think?” I asked Jane.
“We’re as ready as we’re going to be for this,” Jane said.
“Manfred?” I said.
“We’re ready,” he said. “And I hope to God this works.”
“Kranjic? Beata?” I turned back to where Jann Kranjic and Beata stood, the two of them fully decked out in reporter gear. Beata nodded; Kranjic gave a thumbs-up.
“Tell them that we acknowledge their message and that we are ceasing fire,” I said, to Jane. “Tell them we look forward to their arrival to discuss terms of surrender.”
“Done,” Jane said, a moment later. I turned to Savitri, who was standing next to Beata. “You’re on,” I said.
“Great,” Savitri said, in an entirely unconvincing tone of voice.
“You’ll be fine,” I said.
“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” she said.
“I’m afraid I left the bucket back at the office,” I said.
“I’ll just throw up on your boots,” Savitri said.
“Seriously,” I said. “Are you ready to do this, Savitri?”
She nodded. “I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
We all went to our positions.
Some time later a light in the sky resolved itself into two troop transports. The transports hovered over Croatoan for some small amount of time before landing a klick away in an unsown field. The field had originally been sown; we had plowed under the early seedlings. We’d planned on troop transports and we hoped to convince them to land in a particular spot by making it more appealing than other places. It worked. In the back of my head I imagined Jane smiling grimly. Jane would have been cautious about landing in the one agricultural field that didn’t have plants sticking out of it, but that’s one of the reasons we did it. I would have been cautious, too, when I was leading troops. Basic military competence was going to matter here, and this was our first clue as to what sort of fight we had on our hands.
I took my binoculars and peered through. The transports had opened and soldiers were piling out of the bays. They were compact, mottled and thickly skinned; Arrisian, all of them, like their leader. This was another way this invasion force differed from General Gau’s fleet. Gau spread the responsibility for his incursions among the entire Conclave; Eser was saving the glory of this attack for his own people.
The soldiers formed into platoons; three platoons, thirty or thirty-five soldiers each. About a hundred overall. Eser was definitely feeling cocky. But then, the one hundred soldiers on the ground were an illusion; no doubt Eser had a few hundred more back on his ship, not to mention that the ship itself was capable of blasting the colony from orbit. On the ground or above, Eser had more than enough firepower to kill us all several times over. Most of the Arrisian soldiers slung the standard Arrisian automatic rifle, a slug-thrower known for its velocity, accuracy and high rate of fire. Two soldiers in each platoon carried shoulder-mounted missile launchers; given the incursion, this looked like they were going to be for show more than anything else. No beam weapons or flamethrowers as far as I could see.
Now came Eser, flanked by an honor guard. Eser was dressed in Arrisian military gear, a bit of show because he’d never served, but I suppose if you’re going to try to show up a general in a military mission, you’d best dress for the part. Eser’s limbs were thicker and the fiber tufts around his eyestalks were darker than those of his soldiers; he was older and more out of shape than those who were serving him. But inasmuch as I could figure out any emotion from his alien head, he seemed pretty pleased with himself. He stood in front of his soldiers, gesticulating; it looked like he was giving a speech.
Asshole. He was only a klick away, motionless over flat ground. If I or Jane had the right rifle, we could have taken the top of his head clean off. Then we might be dead, because then his soldiers and his ship would flatten the colony. But it would be fun while it lasted. It was moot; we didn’t have the right kind of rifle, and anyway, no matter what happened, we wanted Eser alive at the end of it. Killing him was not in the cards. Alas.
While Eser talked, his guard was actively scanning the environment, looking for threats. I hoped that Jane, in her position, was making note of that; not everyone in this little adventure was entirely incompetent. I wistfully wished I could tell her to make a note of it, but we were in radio silence; we didn’t want to give away the game before it had begun.
Eser finally stopped with his talk and the whole company of soldiers began to walk across the field toward the road that linked the farm to Croatoan. A squad of soldiers took the lead, looking for threat and movement; the rest moved in formation but without much discipline. No one expected much resistance.
Nor would they find any on the road to Croatoan. The entire colony was awake and aware of the invasion, of course, but we warned them all to stay in their homes or in their shelters and not to engage while the soldiers passed into Croatoan. We wanted them to play the part of the cowed and frightened colonists they were supposed to be. For some of them, this wasn’t going to be a problem; for others it was going to take effort. The former group we wanted to be safe as possible; the latter group we wanted contained. We gave them tasks for later, if there was a later.
No doubt the forward squad were scanning the surroundings with infrared and heat sensors, looking for sneak attacks. All they would find are colonists up and at their windows, staring into the darkness as the soldiers marched by. I could see in my binoculars that at least a couple of colonists stood on their porches to see the soldiers. Mennonites. They were pacifists, but they sure as hell weren’t scared of anything.
Croatoan remained as it was when we had begun: a modern-day take on the Roman legion camp, still ringed by two sets of cargo containers. Most of the colonists who had lived there had long abandoned it for homes and farms of their own, but a few people continued to live there, including me and Jane and Zoe, and several permanent buildings stood where the tents used to be. The recreation area at the center of the camp still remained, in front of a lane that passed along it and behind the administration building. In the center of the recreation area stood Savitri, alone. She would be the first human the Arrisian soldiers and Eser would see; the only one, hopefully, that they would see.
I could see Savitri from where I was. The early morning was not cold, but she was clearly shivering.
The first of the Arrisian soldiers reached the perimeter of Croatoan and called a halt to the march as they examined the surroundings to be sure they weren’t walking into a trap. This took several minutes, but eventually they were satisfied that there was nothing there that could harm them. They restarted the march and the Arrisian soldier tromped in, piling up in the recreation center, keeping a wary eye on Savitri, who stood there, silent and now shivering only a little. In a very short amount of time all the soldiers were within the cargo container-lined borders of Croatoan.
Eser came up through the ranks with his guard and stood before Savitri. He motioned for a translator device.
“I am Nerbros Eser,” he said.
“I’m Savitri Guntupalli,” Savitri said.
“You’re the leader of this colony,” Eser said.
“No,” Savitri said.
Eser’s eyestalks jiggled at this. “Where are this colony’s leaders?” he asked.
“They’re busy,” Savitri said. “That’s why they sent me out to talk to you.”
“And who are you?” Eser said.
“I’m the secretary,” Savitri said.
Eser’s eyestalks extended angrily and almost banged together. “I have the power to level this entire colony, and its leader sends his secre
tary to meet me,” he said. Clearly any hint of magnanimity Eser may have been planning in victory was flying right out the window.
“Well, they did give me a message for you,” Savitri said.
“They did,” Eser said.
“Yes,” Savitri said. “I was told to tell you that if you and your troops were willing to get back into your ships and just go back where you came from, we’d be happy to let you live.”
Eser goggled and then emitted a high screee, the Arrisian noise for amusement. Most of his soldiers screed along with him; it was like a convention of angry bees. Then he stopped his scree and stalked right up to Savitri, who like the star she is, didn’t even flinch.
“I was planning to let most of your colonists survive,” Eser said. “I was going to have this colony’s leaders executed for the crimes against the Conclave, when they helped the Colonial Union ambush our fleet. But I was going to spare your colonists. You are tempting me to change my mind on that.”
“So, that’s a no, then,” Savitri said, staring directly into his eyestalks.
Eser stepped back, and turned to one of his guards. “Kill her,” he said. “Then let’s get to work.”
The guard raised his weapon, sighted in on Savitri’s torso, and tapped the trigger panel on his rifle.
The rifle exploded, shearing vertically in the plane perpendicular to the rifle’s firing mechanism and sending a vertical planar array of energy directly upward. The guard’s eyestalks intersected that plane and were severed; he fell screaming in pain, clutching what remained of his stalks.
Eser looked again at Savitri, confused.
“You should have left when you had the chance,” Savitri said.
There was a bang as Jane kicked open the door of the administration building, the nanomesh suit that hid her body heat covered by standard Department of Colonization police armor, same as the others of us in our little squad. In her arms was something that was not standard Department of Colonization issue: A flamethrower.
Jane motioned Savitri back; Savitri didn’t need to be told twice. From in front of Jane came the sound of Arrisian screams as panicked soldiers tried to shoot her, only to have their rifles shear and erupt violently in their arms. Jane walked right up to the soldiers, who had begun to wheel back in fear, and poured fire into their midst.