Murphy dropped the papers, grabbed at his holster—but knew he was too late: the shadows—black-clad and -masked—had already raised the square, big-gripped weapons that were standard issue for SpinDog troops and security personnel.
Two quick reports…and Murphy was surprised to find he was still alive, still upright. He was more surprised to see the two shadows fall forward. What the—?
“Down!” yelled a voice he recognized only as he was hitting the deck—because he’d never heard Max Messina shout before now.
Staccato machine-pistol fire was behind him, answered by a flurry of three round bursts from an M16 in front of him, rounds wheeting and whining through the space he’d just occupied. A second later, Murphy heard a leaden thump back where the submachine gun had been stuttering.
To Murphy’s front, Max emerged from an already open hatch, just a few steps beyond the maintenance access panels. He checked a small data slate, nodded. “Video feed and motion sensors say we’re clear, Major. For now. Let’s get moving.”
* * *
Murphy wanted to run the last few hundred meters to the comparatively safe precincts of the Otlethes Family. Max, still jogging slowly, shook his head. “No, sir. Not a good idea. Sounds of running carry pretty far in these steel tunnels. Better go a little more slowly and a lot more quietly.”
It made Murphy nervous, but he’d learned from the platoon sergeant in his first command that a smart officer allowed experts to do their job and to realize that he probably wasn’t an expert at anything. So, he followed Max’s lead, literally and figuratively.
Gunfire rang down the metal passageway. Murphy crouched. Max didn’t. “Not theirs,” he muttered.
“What do you mean? It sure as hell isn’t one of our M-14s!”
Max shook his head again. “Those are Otlethes’ seven-millimeter assault rifles. Not as good as the lighter Kormak carbines in zero gee, but they’re better dirtside, and about equal up here in the Spins.”
Murphy listened again, wondering how and when Max had become acquainted with the sounds and characteristics of the local firearms. “That’s a lot of gunfire. It’s picking up.”
It stopped suddenly…and then resumed at twice the intensity.
Max straightened, made a rough upward gesture. “You wanted to run, sir? Well, now’s the time!”
They sprinted—but Max was leading them toward the sound of the guns.
* * *
Three minutes later, they came up short at a corner and Max called out, “It’s Major Murphy, coming in!”
“Advance and be recognized!”
Max put up a hand blocking Murphy’s progress. Murphy looked at it, then him. “I thought you were sure that these are the good guys.”
“I am.”
“Well?”
Max almost smiled. “I could be wrong.” He took a big step into the open, left hand holding the M16 by the carrying handle, right hand well away from his body.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” said a thickly accented SpinDog voice. “Come forward. Anseker will be relieved the major was not killed.”
Max waved for Murphy to follow. They passed through a gauntlet of armed men and women, most in Otlethes colors, but a few wearing symbols and signs of allegiance that Murphy did not recognize. He glanced up at Max, muttered, “Let me guess: you know who the new players are, too.”
Max shrugged as they followed a tween-aged girl through barricades and over bodies—mostly wearing Kormak colors. “I get around, sir.”
“I don’t see how. Seems like you’re my shadow every waking hour. Only time you’re not there is when you’re asleep.”
Max cocked his head philosophically. “Sir, you’re making the assumption that, when I clock out and head for my rack, I actually go there.” He leaned down toward Murphy. “Truth is, I don’t sleep much.”
Murphy swallowed, wondered what martyr’s sacrifice he’d made in an earlier life to deserve a guardian angel like Maximilliano Messina. “And that’s how you know about Anseker’s new allies.”
“Not new, sir,” Max corrected. “Just quiet. They knew this was coming, y’see. I kinda had hints, too, once some of the other side’s guys started following you around.”
“Some guys were doing what?”
“They were good, I’ll give ‘em that. And because they were pros, I knew they wouldn’t be the ones actually making the hit. Good assassins never appear near their target; someone else does that. And the two guys watching you always worked alone. They were never in the same place, never at the same time. Always at distance. Didn’t move with us; that was too obvious. But they had hand-offs, one calling ahead to the other to pick us up as we changed location. SOP when you’re tailing suspects…or targets. They also passed near the CP way more than any local would have reason to.”
“Which you knew how?”
“Video feed. Scored some of the local cameras from the Expansionists. Anseker heard, reached out to me in his role as their defense chief. We talked and he clued me in on what was about to go down. And he asked me not to tell you.”
“And you agreed to that?” Murphy stopped, barked, “Sergeant, fact check: who the hell is your CO?”
Max slowed to a halt, regarded Murphy solemnly. “You are, sir. And you made it my job to keep you alive. If doing that to the best of my ability meant keeping you out of the loop for three days, then that’s what I was willing to do.” He gestured forward, resumed walking. So did Murphy. “Sir, I’m sure you noticed I didn’t last long in the field, back in ‘Nam.”
“I did. But there were no reports or charges of insubordination.”
Now Max did smile. “Kinda difficult for officers to report you when you save their asses by doing what needed to be done. Particularly while they were still trying to get their thumb out. And when everybody in the field and up the chain knows it.” He sighed. “Look, sir, I don’t mean to sound cocky. I had good officers, but sometimes I clue in to a growing threat like I’m coming up on a highway intersection socked in by fog that no one else can see through. And there’s never a good way, or enough time, to explain what I see or how I saw it. By that time, we’d all be dead.”
“Well, okay…but keeping me in the dark for three days?”
Max shrugged. “Sir, if I’d told you, you would have reacted to protect all of us, because you’d have been right to fear that every Lost Soldier was either going to be tortured for information or sent out an airlock as soon as the Hardliners got control. But those changes would have made the Hardliners suspicious and they’d have learned that the Expansionists were ready and waiting for them.” He grimaced. “Then the plans to read you in at today’s meeting with Anseker got fubared by what just happened dirtside.”
“Which you know about how?”
“Don’t know the details, sir. But even though you have your own secure line, the SpinDogs have their own operators and sympathetics on R’Bak. Word came up about a mortar attack. Word was the mortar was not of local manufacture; no surprise there. It also meant that there was only one source from which the locals could have scored it: Kormak or some middleman of his.”
“And that set off a war?”
“Sir, first off, the war was already coming. According to Anseker, the more you started talking about increasing replication, the more antsy the leading Hardliners became. Even without the informers who came forward, the Expansionists saw the writing on the wall—the wall against which they were going to be lined up by Kormak and his pals.”
Murphy nodded. “So, they came up with their own plans. Which they had to keep totally off the radar.”
“Yes, sir. I’m guessing the civil war is just about over by now. Because while the Hardliners had a plan, the Expansionists knew it, made their own, and managed to keep it quiet. That ‘watching you watching me watching you’ bullshit could have gone on for weeks, probably.”
“But then the mortar report came up from R’Bak.”
Max nodded as they rounded a bend that put them
inside the stronghold of Family Otlethes. “Kormak and Company didn’t have to be geniuses to know their fingerprints were on that smoking gun…well, tube. So Kormak made the logical move: attack early, before the Expansionists could react to the evidence that the Hardliners were trying to sabotage the very mission they were apparently working to support. Only problem was, they had no idea the Expansionists were already waiting for them.”
Murphy nodded, slowed as they approached what looked like blast doors, flanked by automated defense turrets. As the two slabs of bulkhead began opening to admit them, he caught sight of Makarov inside…along with Mara Lee. He glanced up at Max as they resumed their approach. “Lee knew about this, too, didn’t she?”
For the first time, Max looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know, sir. But I suspect she smelled something was up. She’s—well, they treat her almost like she’s one of them.”
Yeah, and that’s just what I’m afraid of. The question was, why? Ever since Lee had returned from the first training rotation on R’Bak, it wasn’t just that she’d been acting differently. The Expansionists—and the Otlethes Family in particular—had been behaving differently toward her: regular and less formal contact, including meals. A measure of contact, of intimacy, that hadn’t yet been shown to any other Terran. Which was exactly what Murphy had hoped she would achieve, but he hadn’t anticipated she’d also become more distant from the Lost Soldiers as a consequence.
Murphy suppressed a sigh as they approached Anseker and his Terran guests, who now stood before a wall map festooned by unit markers. Almost all the markers carried the colors of the Otlethes Family. Lee, receiving information from the Primus himself, glanced at Murphy and smiled faintly.
Murphy returned it, even as he realized, It’s high time for a heart-to-heart, Bruce. He didn’t want to pry into the details of what had happened during her first tour dirtside, but now, the circumstances had changed. Now, he was watching one of his cadre acting and speaking as if she was the family friend of some very enigmatic and high-handed “allies.” Opsec alone made it necessary for him to get the facts of what had happened on R’Bak. All the facts.
And there was only one way to get them.
* * * * *
Part Five: Lee
Chapter Forty-Five
R’Bak
Reminders of home are a double-edged sword.
For some reason, that thought popped into Mara’s head, fully formed and apropos of nothing as the song on her Walkman flipped from her usual hard-driving classic rock to a poppy, groovy number by Deee-Lite. Her son had loved the song, though he’d innocently missed all the innuendos involved in the lyrics. That’s how it worked when you were only four.
“Captain Mara Lee?”
Grateful for the distraction, Mara hit the pause button on the Walkman and pulled the headphones off. She levered herself up on her bunk and looked toward the figure silhouetted in the doorway.
“Yeah?”
“Major Murphy’s compliments, and he wishes to speak with you.”
A chorus of oohs arose from the other women in the bunk bay, and Mara snorted and grinned, despite the melancholy direction her thoughts had started to take. She got to her feet and lifted both middle fingers in response, laughing along with the others as they rolled over and went back to whatever they’d been doing. Mara shoved her feet into her boots and tied them quickly before walking toward the hatch, twisting her hair up into a bun as she went.
“Any idea what he wants?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” the young man said, his accent crisp and British. He wore a khaki uniform and the insignia of a WWII-era commando. He was stiff, and seemed not entirely comfortable looking directly at her. Mara glanced down at her own attire and realized her sand-colored flight suit was unzipped nearly to her waist. She let out a tiny sigh and zipped it to the level of her nametag.
She’d been relaxing! Why did it suddenly feel like she’d done something wrong? A discontented mulishness trickled into her mind, and she fought to keep her facial expression pleasant. Realistically, though, the best she could probably hope for was “neutral.” She’d always had a wicked case of “Resting Bitch Face.” Murphy never seemed to care, at least. She supposed that was a silver lining of sorts.
Mara followed the young Tommy to the section of the station Murphy had claimed for his headquarters.
Tommy rapped his knuckles on the door frame as the hatch slid open. He slipped inside. Mara heard the murmur of voices, but since she was standing back from the opening, she couldn’t make out distinct words, other than Tommy’s clipped, “Yes, sir.”
The young soldier stepped back out and turned to her. “You’re to go right in, ma’am.” He said it in that strange Brit way that made it sound like “mum.”
“Thank you,” she replied, resisting the urge to be sarcastic or otherwise snarky. Tommy couldn’t help what decade he’d been born in any more than she could. She flashed him a smile he probably didn’t see—given that he was still avoiding eye contact—and slid past him into the boss’ office.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” she asked.
“Bruce. Yes. Please come in. Have a seat.” Murphy gestured to the cluster of chairs and a small table that dominated one corner of the room. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, sir,” she said. “Thank you.” His use of her callsign indicated this wasn’t the most formal of meetings, but Mara still had no clue why he’d called her in. So, she sat, but lightly, balancing on the edge of her chair.
“How is your part of the mission prep coming, Captain?”
Mara let out a breath and dutifully took him through the primary and contingency plans she and her fellow crews had worked up over the past few weeks. She was careful, thorough, and detailed, and damn sure she didn’t miss anything as she filled him in.
Murphy nodded thoughtfully, his eyes on the tabletop. Then he raised them so they were boring straight into her own.
“That sounds very promising. But it all hinges on one detail you’ve assumed in your report. Namely, that all the SpinDogs will show up to play their part.” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes unblinking as he waited for her response.
“They’ll be there, sir.” Mara fought not to fidget under his intense regard, looking directly into her commander’s eyes. “I can promise you that.” She could, too. She knew it as sure as she knew her own name.
“Promise. The biggest two-syllable word in the English language.” He still did not blink. “Strange word, too. Such a straightforward definition in the dictionary, and yet it always seems to have unspoken caveats connected to it. Like the promises made when people get married. Sometimes all the vows and oaths are kept, and no one gets surprised or hurt. But sometimes the words mean different things to different people, and they don’t realize it. Some people make promises knowing they’ll break them, or they already have—and there’s always the escape clause. Because it’s kind of hard to know just what ‘until death do us part’ means when, just a few months later, a couple can sign some papers and get a divorce.”
Finally, he smiled. “So, tell me, Bruce, how’s our marriage to the SpinDogs? Specifically, how’s that final oath? ‘Til death do us part?”
Mara saw the smile, saw the way it didn’t quite reach all the way to his eyes. She took a deep breath and straightened her spine.
“Sir,” she said slowly, careful to shade her tone with respect, “you made me their liaison. You’re asking me if we have a good relationship with them? Is that right? If they’ll fight beside us? I’m telling you they will, but from the way you’re asking the question, it sounds like you don’t quite believe me. Or maybe you want proof? Is that it?”
His smile became slightly brittle. “I don’t have a degree in theology, but I’m pretty sure that since a promise is a matter of free will, not even God could prove whether or not a person is going to keep it.” He leaned forward. “And, as impressed as I am with your abilities, Bruce, I don’t think walking on water is likely
to be one of them.
“However, you clearly believe that you know what the SpinDogs mean when they promise to be by our side in the coming shitstorm. So much so that you are clearly willing to risk your life on that understanding and their oath-keeping. Even though you have only known them for about two months.”
The remaining fragments of his smile disappeared. “I’ve watched you, Bruce. You don’t trust easily. Which I consider to be a good thing, particularly in this situation. And yet, you trust the SpinDogs more than you trust the majority of us. So no, I’m not asking for proof that they’re going to do what they say; I’m asking why you are so certain they will.”
He leaned back again. His expression was disturbingly neutral. “Maybe it’s time to tell me what really happened at the end of that first training assignment. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth…so help you God.”
Mara froze and willed her face to stay blank, her eyes to be unwavering while her thoughts whirled and spilled over each other in a chaotic jumble. After an interminable moment, she inhaled slowly through her nose and forced herself to speak.
“All right,” she said. “You’re right, sir. There is more to the story than what’s in my report. But it’s not military details. It’s…personal.”
He didn’t move. He just waited with that penetrating gaze for her to begin.
* * * * *
Chapter Forty-Six
R’Bak, Two Months Earlier
“You sure about this, ma’am?”
Mara didn’t turn her head to look in Elroy’s direction as he spoke. Instead, she continued standing with her arms crossed over her chest, watching as the SpinDog shuttle made its final approach to the center of their brand spanking-new training camp. She did, however, unbend enough to tilt her head a tiny bit toward him, so he could hear her over the sound of the shuttle’s engines. “El, have you been sure of anything since we woke up?”
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