No Direction Home

by James Baddock

  Now, Ferreira’s look was one of distaste. ‘This is the kind of war you fight, Vinter – dirty and underhand. I prefer a war when you know your enemy and confront him face to face. A clean war.’

  ‘A clean war?’ Vinter’s laugh was harsh, mocking. ‘Don’t make me laugh. There’s no such thing, Colonel. Because, in any war, men die when they needn’t, because someone else who doesn’t ever have to risk his life decides that they’re going to. Die, that is. The bravery of being out of range, Colonel, that’s what your war is all about. Or are you going to be the first to go into battle, to confront the enemy face to face, as you put it? I don’t think so, somehow… So don’t give me all this crap about a clean war, Colonel, because all war is dirty – no, not just dirty – it’s fucking obscene.’ He held Ferreira’s furious glare for several seconds, knowing that the other man was only just restraining himself from attacking him – for all the good it would do him – then said, ‘And this is from someone who is the best fucking soldier you will ever command, Colonel. Just don’t ever for a moment believe that I agree with any of it, do you understand me?’

  Ferreira’s voice was cold with suppressed rage. ‘What I understand, Vinter, is that when I give the order, you will kill our enemies just as efficiently – and just as ruthlessly – as I, or any of my colleagues that you claim to despise, would. That is what I understand. Nothing else is of any relevance to you or to me. So, Major Vinter – do you understand me?

  ‘Perfectly, Colonel. I always have.’

  *****

  The Persephone chime interrupted him as he was shaving. ‘Here.’

  ‘Adebayo and Mendis have set up the access you asked for, sir. It involves quite a long protocol, though. OK to send it by encrypted email? Send and Delete?’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’ Vinter moved into the main area and over to the comp, accessing his mail. ‘Go ahead.’ He watched as Kari’s message arrived, then dragged the icon immediately into his personal hard drive. ‘OK, delete.’

  ‘Done.’ The original message disappeared from the log; unless anyone had been monitoring the message for those five seconds or so, there was no evidence that any message had ever been sent.

  ‘Acknowledged. And the other request?’

  ‘It’s in hand, sir.’

  ‘Well done, Kari.’

  ‘Thanks, sir. Proserpina.’

  It was only then that he realised he had used her first name; Shit, must be more tired than I thought…

  He pushed the thought aside, because now that the necessary protocol had been set up, it was time to send the message, but as he typed in the passwords that opened up his line of communications, he was very aware that, once he had sent the signal, there would be no going back. He would be committed.

  Along with who knew how many others, unfortunately…

  He did not have to do this, of course; there was still time to pull back from the edge. All he had to do was, literally, nothing. Just let events take their course – and run the risk of losing everything.

  Put that way, he had no choice, none at all. But did he have the right to do this? To play God?

  Vinter hesitated for a moment longer, then sent the password protocols that would enable Vinter Two to open the Shuttle Bay Doors.

  *****

  The next incident happened thirty hours later, when a maintenance worker in Nuclear Engineering used a heavy wrench to smash in the skull of his supervisor, sealed himself off from the rest of the ship, then started to key in the correct coded sequence of instructions to withdraw the cooling rods from Reactor Three that would have resulted in a full meltdown within two hours; he had only been prevented from completing the procedure by pumping water into the entire compartment and drowning him – and the supervisor. It was little consolation that the various safeguards would have prevented full meltdown because they entailed flooding the entire reactor space and shutting it down permanently.

  ‘In other words, it was intended to cause significant, but not fatal, damage,’ commented Ferreira.

  ‘It looks like it, yes, but it means we have to introduce the same procedures throughout the ship as we’re using for military details – always at least three people around,’ said Vinter.

  Ferreira glanced sharply at him, then shook his head in frustration, muttering something under his breath, before he nodded slowly. ‘Again, you’re right. And I suppose that includes all levels of authority – by your logic, there should be someone else with us at this moment.’ They were in his office, seated on each side of the desk, but there was nobody else present; for some time now, Ferreira had been by-passing his own Command Team and simply consulting Vinter on key issues, even though it was patently obvious that neither man could stand the other and did little to conceal it. Despite himself, Vinter had to concede – grudgingly – that Ferreira was a thorough professional; he had effectively appointed Vinter his Chief of Staff, despite his own personal feelings, simply because he felt that Vinter had more to offer than the rest of his Command Team.

  ‘True – although I think I could probably handle you if you ran amok, and you’ve got that remote to keep me in line. The point is that the engineer–’

  ‘Barzini.’

  ‘Barzini knew the correct password sequence for withdrawing the rods. But, apparently, there was no way he could have known it – he didn’t have the necessary security rating.’

  ‘Oh, dear God…’ Ferreira groaned as he realised the implications. ‘He must have been given the sequence as part of his activation signal.’

  ‘Or it was always there, buried deep in his memory and the signal simply released it.’ Vinter shrugged. ‘Either way, your security has been compromised big time, Colonel.’

  To Vinter’s surprise, Ferreira buried his head in his hands, rubbing his face in seeming exhaustion. He was silent for almost ten seconds, before he said quietly, ‘We’re going to lose this, aren’t we, Vinter? They have us beaten on all fronts, damn them.’

  ‘It’s because they planned for this – you didn’t. They’re bound to have the edge on you, Colonel, but they’ve still got to get aboard, haven’t they? That’s still the deciding factor – they can’t afford to damage Terra Nova too much, so they can’t just blast their way in, can they? If we can hold them off, we’re still in the game.’ And, dammit, you know all this – I shouldn’t have to be reminding you, should I?

  Ferreira raised his head and nodded slowly. ‘Of course you’re right, Vinter. Attacking a strongly defended position is always difficult, especially when you have to capture the objective intact. We still hold the strategic advantage.’

  Vinter noted how Ferreira had taken refuge in military jargon; he was back on balance now. He probably would have been anyway, but, just then, it had taken Vinter to restore his confidence. Had he been on the point of throwing in the towel and did I just talk him out of it?

  Not that he would have surrendered, of course, not this early in the game – it had just been despair, that was all and that would not have lasted long, but even so, there was more than a hint of irony about the situation…

  The thing is that, no matter what he thinks or decides, I can’t allow him to surrender – if what I’ve got in mind is going to work, this thing has to be fought out to the bitter end, no matter what it costs, no matter what price has to be paid.

  And it was going to be a very high price indeed…

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘Alpha Priority. Inspector Vinter to UNSEC Office.’ Kari’s voice through his in-ear device over the UNSEC band – not Persephone, so this is official, but, although the words were formal, there was an edge of tension behind them that had Vinter running for the door even before she had finished speaking.

  ‘Report, Lieutenant,’ he said, skidding round a corner.

  He could hear her draw in her breath before replying, her voice more under control, ‘Berserker incident in Corridor Twenty Seven. Fatalities.’

  Corridor Twenty Seven – right outside her office… ‘Do you ne
ed backup?’

  ‘Not… not now… too late.’ The last two words were almost in a murmur.

  ‘Do you need medical assistance?’

  ‘No, I’m OK… but I think it’s too late for… It’s on its way, anyway. Just get here.’ Her voice sounded taut, controlled, perhaps too much so?

  ‘OK, I’m nearly there. Just hold on, Kari.’ What the fuck had happened?

  Well, that was pretty bloody obvious, because her message had been explicit about that – another berserker attack – but was she OK?

  The corridor was in the process of being secured by UNSEC patrolmen as he arrived, less than thirty seconds after she had called him – at least they were on the ball – and they simply nodded him through the cordon that was already being slung across the entrance.

  He took in the situation in a single glance; Kari was over to the right, arms folded tightly over her chest, ashen-faced, while two UNSEC patrolmen were effectively standing guard over a New Dawn trooper lying sprawled motionless on the floor.

  Four other bodies, one in UNSEC uniform, the others all civilians: the UNSEC patrolwoman was half-sitting, half lying against the far wall, a smear of blood showing how she had been pinned back against the wall by the bullets that formed a red line across her head and shoulders. She was unarmed, off duty, probably just passing through, but the first one the gunman had taken out simply because she was in uniform… The wrong place at the wrong time.

  He could almost reconstruct the scene by the positions of the gunman and his victims – the patrolwoman had been the first to die, blasted at point blank range, before the gunman had pivoted to the the left, cutting down the next victim, lying spreadeagled on his back, half his chest and shoulders ripped away, then number three, lying on her side halfway back towards the entrance Vinter had just used, probably caught still turning to run for it, then number four, lying face down, shot in the back as she had tried to flee.

  Shit… three of them were women… Fuck! Vinter knew it shouldn’t make a difference, but it did, at least for him… Vinter Prime would have been seething.

  He turned towards Kari, noting that her weapon had been returned to its holster, as per Standing Orders; it was only now that he realised Ferreira and Yung-Sien had arrived and were standing in the doorway behind him. Neither had said anything – they were both watching him intently and Vinter realised that they were leaving this to him.

  ‘Lieutenant?’ he asked, his voice deliberately formal.

  Kari seemed startled for a moment, then nodded and came to attention. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Make your report.’

  She took a deep breath, then with an evident effort to keep her voice under control, said, ‘I was in my office when I heard gunfire outside. I drew my weapon and came out of the office. I saw this man –’ she pointed down at the dead trooper ‘–in the act of shooting that victim there.’ She indicated the woman lying face down. ‘He seemed to realise I was there and turned around, so I shot him twice in the chest. He still remained on his feet, so I shot him a third time, this time in the head, and he went down.’ She hesitated, then continued. ‘I then shot him twice more while he was on the ground…’ Again, she broke off, taking a long breath before she continued, her voice rigidly formal: ‘To be perfectly honest, sir, I wanted to make sure he was dead. I’m aware I could face disciplinary procedures for my actions.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Lieutenant. I don’t think you had any alternative in the circumstances.’

  She glanced briefly at him. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He leaned forward so that nobody else would hear his next words. ‘You did well, Kari. Don’t ever think anything else, OK?’

  Her eyes met his again, and this time she did not look away. She nodded slowly. ‘OK, sir.’ She hesitated, then said softly, ‘And thanks again.’

  Vinter gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile, then stepped back and looked around. Somehow, the medical team had arrived and were examining the bodies; he hadn’t noticed them at all until now. Someone – probably Ferreira – had cleared away the watchers outside so that only Ferreira himself remained in the doorway; he nodded to Vinter, just once, before he turned and left.

  ‘OK, Lieutenant,’ Vinter said briskly, turning back to her. ‘Get to your quarters and rest. That’s an order. The report can wait for now – I think I have a pretty good idea what happened here anyway.’ She opened her mouth to speak but he shook his head. ‘As I said, Lieutenant, that’s an order.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Vinter watched her leave, giving the dead berserker only a brief glance, then sighed and walked over to the medical team.

  *****

  ‘How is Lieutenant Sondgren?’ Ferreira asked, when Vinter reported to his office, thirty minutes later.

  ‘She’s dealing with it – she’s taken a sedative and Adebayo’s with her at the moment,’ said Vinter. ‘She’s not exactly over the moon about it, but…’ He shrugged. ‘She’s pretty resilient, though – she’ll be OK… eventually.’

  ‘Was it her first time in action? Had she ever used her weapon in anger before?’

  Vinter shook his head. ‘Not according to her record, no.’

  Ferreira seemed suddenly far away, in some other time and place. ‘They tell you that the first one is the worst, that after that, it gets easier.’ He sighed. ‘But it doesn’t, does it? And nor should it…’ He broke off abruptly, as if he had said too much, then continued. ‘Keep an eye on her, Vinter, will you? We can’t afford to lose her – not now.’

  Vinter stared at him, trying to keep his face totally impassive. Bloody hell – just when you think you’ve got him taped, he goes and surprises you… Is Ferreira a model commanding officer, showing concern about his subordinates, because it’s in the military text books – or does he really care? Either way, he doesn’t really deserve what’s going to happen to him…

  The comms set on Ferreira’s desk chimed; his hand snaked out to grab it, betraying his tension. ‘Ferreira here… What? Repeat…’ His shoulders slumped tiredly, then he said, ‘Very well – I’ll be there as soon as possible.’ He replaced the set, shaking his head, then stood up slowly.

  ‘Someone’s released raw sewage into the main water supply in Three Gamma,’ he said, resignedly.

  *****

  Incident Five, or maybe Six, if you count Teixeira… Ferreira looked up impatiently as Teymourian arrived, still buttoning his tunic, then said, ‘Very well, gentleman and lady, we have footage of the incident in the Social Area that occurred forty seven minutes ago. The reason I have summoned you here without an opportunity to study it in detail is because Major Vinter feels that this incident shows a significant development in the enemy’s disruption campaign and I must say that I am inclined to agree with him. Major?’

  Vinter nodded. ‘I’m not sure that watching the footage will be all that helpful at the moment – it still needs a good deal of cleaning up and editing to make sense – so I’ll simply run through what we’ve managed to piece together. As far as we can determine–’

  Yung-Sien raised his hand. ‘Who exactly is we?’ The resentment in his voice was only too evident.

  It was Ferreira who answered. ‘Major Vinter and myself. We’ve just spent over fifteen minutes running through the footage, and are thus able to give a full briefing, so can we get on with it?’

  Despite the circumstances, Vinter found himself having to stifle a smile at Yung-Sien’s discomfiture; he obviously had not expected to be put down so emphatically by his superior.

  ‘Continue, Major.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel. The actual sleeper responsible for this incident was a Private Jens Matthias.’ Vinter pressed a key on his comp and an ID photo of a man in his mid twenties appeared on the wallscreen. ‘Let me run you through the sequence of events.

  ‘Private Matthias and his friends Privates Houseman and Salgado arrive in Harry’s Bar – sorry, the main Social Area – at 2046. They buy drinks at the bar, then take seats just here.’ He
pressed another key and a floor plan of the Social Area appeared on the screen, showing the general lay out of the bar; one of the tables was highlighted in red. ‘You’ll notice that it’s situated pretty much in the exact centre of the bar area. It’s also perhaps relevant that the three of them apparently usually stayed at the bar when drinking together – but not this time.

  ‘Seventeen minutes later, at 2103, Matthias takes out two fragmentation grenades from his jacket pocket, throws one of them very precisely onto the bar and allows the other to detonate in the middle of his table. Matthias, Houseman and Salgado are killed instantly, but the shrapnel from that grenade rips through the bar in all directions. The one that has been lobbed onto the bar has a similar effect, killing, as it turned out, all the bar staff and everyone sitting on bar stools. One of the victims is almost cut in two by the blast and shrapnel, another is decapitated… and so on. A total of thirty-five dead, plus fifty-two suffering injuries ranging from superficial for those furthest away to life threatening or changing for those closer, but outside immediately lethal range. Or, to put it another way, approximately fifty per cent of those currently awake are now on the casualty list.’

  Vinter paused, to allow the others to absorb the information, then went on, ‘OK, those are the bare facts but this is what we need to think about. The attack took place at 2103 on a Saturday night. Statistically speaking, that’s during the hour when the bar is at its busiest throughout the week. Coincidence? I doubt it. The grenade that was lobbed onto the bar was almost perfectly placed, again, for maximum effect. While that could be explained by whatever triggered Matthias’s attack also instigating the kind of Combat Conditioning that would enable him to do so with such precision, that doesn’t explain where the grenades came from, does it? They didn’t just happen to be there, did they? These men were off duty, remember.’