"Stop you from what?"
"Lieutenant, if that pilot knows where the Paladin is, we need to find out what he knows. It would be best for everyone if you found that out before he gets back here. It really would be best if I didn't have to do it my way."
Interrogation
The tower basement was musty, but the power arrays were still generating enough power for them to get the lights on and power up the single recovery chamber embedded in the concrete wall. Dekker, a detail of three Marines and the senior corpsman stood facing the contraption. The sound of footsteps coming down the staircase echoed around the room as Lt. Simmons lead two of her men dragging the handcuffed pilot into the room. His face was bloodied and swollen, but he was conscious. The two men marched him into the center of the room and let him drop to the floor. The man grunted as his knees smacked the concrete. He looked tired and worn down by pain, but he didn't look scared. His eyes were too vacuous to be defiant, but whatever he knew was hidden too deep for the claws of pain to get at.
Dekker glared at Lt. Simmons. "What's this?" he asked.
"Sir, this is our freighter pilot." She stood as straight as she could, despite the fatigue Dekker could see creasing her face.
"Go on," Dekker said.
"Sir, he's some kind of tough guy. He won't talk."
Dekker lifted a brow and approached the pilot, deliberately thumping the concrete with the heel of his left boot as he walked. "Is that right?"
"I need to get him back home for a sequenced debrief. We'll get it."
The pilot stared at the floor as Dekker paced in a circle around him. "Yeah, we don't have time for that." He nodded at his detail. The three armed Marines stomped over to the pilot and hoisted him to his feet. Dekker moved to the console on the wall next to the chamber and pounded the hatch release with the back of his fist. The steel latches holding the door in place clunked open and let it swing open. His Marines threw the pilot into the chamber and he crumpled to the floor.
Lt. Simmons took a step forward and blurted out, "Colonel." Dekker shot her a glance. She didn't say anything more, but she held her position. Dekker turned back to the pilot and crouched down in front of him. "Look here, tough guy. I get it. Major Walker, he's -" Dekker tilted his head to the side. "He's one of those men people are willing to die for even when they finally realize just what that means." Dekker cupped the man's chin, forcing him to look up. The eyes were glassed over, but not in the way of defeat. Whatever was left of him was buried deep inside, locking out the world around him. Dekker let go and the man's chin fell to his chest. "I know what it's like. I was his Foot Guard at one time. Did you know that? I would have died for that man without a second thought. But you and I know it's more than that. It's not about the dying. It's like you're sacrificing yourself on an altar to the last thing about us that makes any of it matter."
Dekker stood up and walked back to his detail. "Yeah, I get all of that." The armed Marines pulled the man back out and lay him on his back. Dekker shut the chamber door, then caught the corpsman's eye and nodded. He resented the sense of defeat settling into his heart, but he knew words would never work.
The corpsman knelt down and placed a recovery transmitter on the pilot's chest. The pilot whimpered and his eyes flared. The corpsman slapped the top of the transmitter and a thin veil of orange light spread out over the pilot's body. A pop filled the room as the light flashed and then vanished. The pilot was gone.
The coils behind the chamber filled the room with a growling hum as the chamber flooded with cold steam and the millions of microscopic cells scrambling to assemble themselves. A form began to coalesce as the steam gathered into the vortex that preceded every re-assembly. The form gurgled and then, just as it became recognizable as a human being, let out a screeching wail that drowned out the coil's hum and the vortex slashing at the sides of the chamber. It reached through the thick plastic of the chamber door and filled the room as if it were the only sound in the universe. Dekker clenched his fists, forcing himself to keep his eyes open and remain standing even as his knees started to buckle.
The steam receded and the latches holding back the chamber door slammed open. The door swung open and the pilot tumbled out onto the floor, gagging. Dekker turned the man over on his back and saw stark terror staring back at him as the man worked his jaw, gasping for air. He coughed and reached up to clutch at Dekker's chest. Dekker waited for the man to recover and said, "About now, you would normally receive a post-construction sedative. They say it's to ease the discomfort. But it's really to keep you from losing your mind. In the early days, they didn't have the sedative. Four, maybe five rounds, was all anybody could take." He signalled for the corpsman to re-attach the transmitter. The pilot hadn't recovered control of his own muscles and weaved his hands through the air as if he were in a drunken stupor as he tried to push it away. The corpsman lay the transmitter on the pilot's chest. Dekker grabbed the pilot's hands and said, "Then they just went off the deep end."
He stood up and told the corpsman, "Scan him this time." He pulled a gray box from a cargo pocket and handed it over. The corpsman gasped, jerking his head back. Dekker shoved the box closer. "Scan him." The corpsman frowned and then reached out to take the box, cradling it in his hand as if it were a bomb ticking down the last seconds of his own life.
"Colonel!" Lt. Simmons yelled from across the room. "This is not a sanctioned protocol. We do not do this sort of thing anymore."
Dekker held the corpsman's eye for a moment longer before turning to face Lt. Simmons.
"Lieutenant," he said, striding towards her. "You need to calm down." He stopped close enough that he could feel her breath as she jutted her chin out, fuming. "Or I'll put you in a tube myself."
"You're threatening a commissioned officer of the MEF S-2 division?" she asked. He probably would have said the same thing in her position. "Interrogation is my jurisdiction. Me. Bravo One Nine," she said.
"And if you had done your job, we wouldn't be standing here, Lieutenant!" he yelled. He stared at Lt. Simmons, burrowing his gaze into her until he detected a quiver run along her cheek. In a low voice, he said, "I told you to get him to talk so it wouldn't come to this. Remember?"
"I remember."
"You failed to follow my orders, Lieutenant. Do you want me to allow the mission to fail because of that?"
Lt. Simmons glanced away. "Of course not, sir."
"Then step back and let me do your job." Her eyes flared, but she said nothing. He stepped aside so she could see the pilot writhing on the floor. He was giving her a choice. Her eyes fluttered and she stepped back.
Turning back to the corpsman, Dekker said, "Again."
The pilot scrambled to get to his feet. "No!" he shouted. The Marines wrestled the pilot back to the ground as Dekker knelt down next to him and looked into his eyes. "We're going to scan you this time. You can try to block it. And then we'll do this a third time. After that, it gets dicey. You know, forcing me to do it the hard way - that's honorable. They'll whisper about you for generations. The man who tried to save the Paladin. While we're in there, in your mind, looking for what we need, I want you to think about this. When we get to the point where you've lost your mind and all you have left are the nightmares that never let you go - when we get there, I'm not going to sedate you. I'm not going to kill you. No. I'm going to strap an IV to your arm and make sure you never go back to sleep. And those nightmares will be there, rampaging inside your head. And you'll never be able to run away from them." Dekker pointed at the corpsman, who planted the transmitter on the pilot's chest and slapped the device, triggering the next veil of light to consume the pilot and start the chamber coils rumbling again.
Dekker clenched his teeth so hard they hurt. An ache welled up inside and seized his chest, straining to gush out of him like an erupting volcano. He pushed it back down with the force of his own will and felt it recede, but not nearly far enough. He turned his head away from the others as a single tear found its way onto his cheek.
He shook his head, flinging the drop away. He had orders. Like his outnumbered Marines holding back the Second Brigade, his own will seemed to look back at him and ask a question.
How long would orders be enough?
Honor
Lt. Simmons turned and started walking up the stairs.
"Where are you going?" Dekker asked.
She looked back at the slack body of the pilot - his eyes glossed over in a haze of agony. "I'm not going to stand here and watch this," she said.
When Dekker looked at her, she could see something behind the darkness in his eyes fighting to be seen. His conscience was trapped somewhere behind them, looking back at her. There was nothing she could do to help that part of him escape. She only hoped he would do it for himself before it was too late.
"Very well, Lieutenant," he said. "I had expected you to be stronger."
She leveled her gaze and glared at him. "I am," she said. Then she turned and walked the rest of the way up the stairs.
Once outside, she turned her face to the sun and let the heat flow over her, washing away at least some of the darkness she had tried to leave behind in the basement. Over time, she would forget the pilot staring at her wide-eyed, pleading with just his look for her to save him. She would forget that. She would forget the hiss of the chamber bouncing off the walls not quite smothering his screams. She would forget all that. But she swore she would never forget what had happened here. Some crimes went against her honor as a Marine officer. Others went against the Marine Judicial Code. And some crimes went against the essence of just being human. All three had been committed in that basement. She would not forget any of them.
She paced towards the battalion's command troop carrier, shaking her hands as if flinging away an oily residue that refused to come off. When she reached the carrier, she found Brandt wiping down his sidearm with fresh oil. As he snapped it back into his holster, he asked, "How's it going in there?"
She groaned a sigh and shook her head. "It's not right," she said.
"Lot of that going around," he said.
"I guess they sent the right man for the job," she said.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. The man I just saw will have no problem when it comes time to shoot the Paladin and drag his body through the MEF compound."
Brandt looked at the ground and then reached into the carrier to fetch a pack of rations. He broke open one box and handed the other to Lt. Simmons.
She waved it off. "I'm not hungry."
"You're losing strength." Holding the box out, he said, "Eat, Marine. That's an order."
She snatched the box from his hand and tore it open without looking. "Fine."
He let her graze on the dried contents of the package for a moment and then said, "Don't be too hard on Colonel Dekker there."
"Hmmph."
"We once held the Highlands, did you know that?"
She sat down and leaned against the carrier's front tire. "Yeah, I know."
"He was the Paladin's Foot Guard back then."
Simmons stopped mid-bite and shifted eyes her towards him. "What about it?"
"We'd received a report about movement just outside the Highlands and the Paladin moved in the Cats to take a look. Next thing they knew, rounds were landing right in the middle of the farmers working the fields. Terran infantry was headed straight for the Paladin. Dekker moved his men up to screen the Paladin and once the Terrans saw him guarding the Cats, they changed course and headed straight for the fields. Started mowing down farmers as they ran. Shot 'em right in the back."
"What did the Colonel do?"
"He didn't take the bait. Here's the important thing, though." He sat down next to her. "Command told him to set up a hasty defense and protect the farmers."
"And what did he do?"
Turning to face her, he lifted his brow and said, "He stayed with the Cats."
"What happened to the farmers?"
"Yeah, well, the Guard had a full company of infantry with another coming in right behind. They swept that field clean. Killed an entire colony block trying to force Dekker's troops to respond."
Simmons gasped. "That's what, 500 people?"
Brandt picked up a sliver of rock and flung it across the ground. "About that."
"So he just let those people die?"
"Oh, it's worse than that. He let the Terran Guard take the Highlands. By the time command could get anything organized, the Guard had two brigades on line." He flung another rock and waited for it so make a splash in the dirt. "We had more troops back then."
"So what you're telling me is that Colonel Dekker lost the Highlands and he let the Terran Guard kill 500 colonists in the process."
"No, that's not what I'm telling you."
Simmons reached behind her and tossed the empty box into the carrier. Running her tongue across the front of her teeth, she asked, "Then what are you telling me, Captain?"
"Have you ever seen Cats fight infantry up close."
Simmons looked out across the ground, thinking back to the battles she had fought in or watched from an observation post. "Well, no. They're usually in the back."
"Yeah. That's because, as tough as they are, infantry can take one down pretty easily. Up close and personal, all you have to do is clamp on some good explosive or hook some wires into it and jam it full of electric current. Blow a knee out and it's not going anywhere. Short it out and nothing works. Can't even shoot back."
Simmons tilted her head and scoffed. "I've never heard of anything like that. We brought twelve. We still have twelve."
"That's kind of my point, Lieutenant. While the Terran Guard was tearing up colonists, Dekker was screening the Paladin so his Cats could retreat to safety. Once they did that, they stopped the Guard cold. We couldn't push them off the Highlands, but their attack was done."
"So he sacrificed 500 colonists to save the Cats."
"Think harder, Lieutenant. If he had left the Cats, we would have still lost the Highlands, and the Cats. It would have been worse."
"What happened after that?"
"Reprimand. Transferred. Demoted. He was a Brigadier General. Now he's a Colonel. But that's not the thing. He sees it the way you do. He made a decision, disobeyed orders and 500 people died."
Simmons let out a sigh and stared at the tower. "And we lost the Highlands."
"And we lost the Highlands."
She stood up, brushed off the front of her trousers and tugged at the hem of her field utility blouse. "But what does that have to do with any of this?"
Brandt stood up, leaned in close and jabbed his finger at the tower. "What he's doing there, Lieutenant, is following orders. Because that's all he knows how to do anymore."
She turned and looked into his eyes. "That doesn't make it right."
He patted her shoulder and said. "Yeah but try telling him that."
"I can't be part of this," she said.
He stepped over the the carrier hatch, eased it down and latched it. Leaning against the hatch, he said, "Me neither. That's why we need to go find the Paladin."
"I'm not going anywhere with him."
"No. I mean us, Lieutenant. You and me. We need to round up Bravo One Nine and go find the Paladin ourselves before this gets past the point where it can't come back."
Simmons grinned. "That's mutiny, you know."
"Negative, Lieutenant. That's a decision."
Hand of Fate
It had been a full day since General Godfrey had practically handed the Paladin's mercenary pilot to the MEF on a silver platter. She paced the grounds of the Terran Guard compound, waiting. She waited for word from Captain Holt to report that Dekker had made contact with the Paladin. She waited for word from General Lane that his people had found the Paladin and were bringing him to her. She waited for the sun to track across the sky as it baked the ground beneath her boots. She waited while her brigade commander readied the troops to move out in case the MEF couldn't take care of their own business. All that came back to her, f
rom every direction, was dead silence. She smacked her fist into the palm of her hand and quickened her pace, ignoring the growing thirst scratching at the back of her throat.
Her headset beeped and then she heard the voice of the man leading the patrol she had sent to monitor Dekker's battalion. "Guard Six, Tumbleweed, over."
"Go Tumbleweed."
"Looks like they're done with the pilot, General."
"What did you see?"
"They just dragged his body out and dug a burn trench."
Her brow arched in disbelief. "They killed him?"
"Looks like it. Hope so for his sake - they just lit him up."
"Any movement?"
"No ma'am. They're just sitting there. No coms, either."
"Alright. Maintain contact, advise if they actually do anything."
"Wilco."
"Guard Six out."
She ripped the headset off and threw it on the ground, then yanked its cord from the transmitter fastened to her belt. She stomped on the earpiece with her boot and ground it into the dirt. She whipped around and marched back to the line of troop carriers stretched out across the compound. She raised her arm and circled her fist in the air. The heavy click of switches snapped in the air, followed by the droning hum of electromagnetic motors spooling up as the carriers came to life. Like an orchestra tuning before a performance, the sounds drifted through each other, aching to come together and reach out to the world with their own voice. Men scurried to unplug heavy black cables that connected the carriers to the compound's central power station and its towering photovoltaic panels.
She approached a man of short stature standing quietly in front of the procession. The recessed bridge of his nose, sagging eyelids that half covered his eyes and small mouth made him look ordinarily oriental, betraying the brilliant mind of the youngest brigade commander in the history of the Terran Guard. "General Kim," she said.
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