A Call to Arms

by Bradley Hutchinson

  “I’m not exactly apologetic,” James bit back, then winced – he was speaking to a superior officer.

  Instead of copping a serving, however, Brady smiled. “Well, between you and me, the little prick had it coming… but that’s off-the-record, Mr. Hunter, and not to be repeated.” He frowned. “You’re on report. I’ll figure out a suitable punishment tomorrow for you. Brawling in a public street, at Christmas –”

  “At least they weren’t in their uniforms,” Troy pointed out, and Brady glared at him to be quiet. If Troy was intimated, he didn’t show it. Of course he isn’t intimidated, James mused silently, Troy hasn’t got much time or respect for authority figures.

  “There’s that,” Brady said sarcastically, his Texas accent making it a long drawl. “Very well, Hunter, I will see you back at base the day after tomorrow.” He gave a half-bow to Jennifer, whom James had introduced briefly. “Ma’am.” He simply glared at Troy, then spun on his heel and stalked off into the darkened street beyond, an aide falling into step beside him at the doorway.

  “Charming man. I can see why you were so keen to sign up,” Troy muttered, and offered a disappointed glare at his brother, and James felt any progress their relationship had made slipping away rapidly. “Anyway, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go home and to bed… by myself. Unless you were planning on getting into another brawl.”

  James smiled apologetically. “Go on ahead, Troy.”

  “Good to hear.” Troy shrugged, his tone snappish. “I hope there isn’t a media circus out there…”

  Reporters weren’t allowed in police stations, so they always congregated at, or barricaded, the entrance to the building. But, as Troy, stepped outside, there was no cacophony of questions being hurled, no stampede of feet as Troy walked away. James and Jennifer watched him leave in silence, following in his wake silently when he had a large enough lead.

  “Are we okay?” James asked hesitantly.

  Jennifer waited a long moment before answering, her gaze never wavering from the pavement. “I suppose we are. We have to be. I just want to know why, James.” She said it as if accusing him of something, though what that was he didn’t know. It was a tone he wasn’t used to hearing from her.

  “Why did I fight him?”

  “Yes! I know he’s treated you like shit, and I know he provoked you tonight, but… you could have killed him, James. Those bloody combat enhancements you’ve incorporated into your cybernetics aren’t meant for street fighting. They’re meant to –”

  “I know, Jen, I know,” he said softly, forestalling additional arguments. He hadn’t really thought about that aspect… that the injuries he’d inflicted on Gordon Malcangio, and his troupe, could have been fatal, if he’d made just the slightest miscalculation. How many killers killed people just by making a minor misjudgement on where to land a blow, how much pressure to exert?

  “I’ve been asking myself that question all night, Jen. I don’t have an answer yet. I just… got angry. That… man… has been goading me for weeks now, constantly sniping at my heels… and tonight, when he went after my family, I just snapped.”

  Jennifer considered that, her gaze looking up the sky above, which had cleared in the hours it had taken James to be released.

  “That’s lame as fuck, Jim,” Jennifer snapped, and James just fell silent, unable to offer anything meaningful. He had no excuse, not really… but it sure had felt good to let loose on his tormentors. As trivial as their barbs had been, after weeks of suffering… well, James was still unrepentant at giving them a beating.

  “But I guess family honour will have to suffice,” Jennifer finally said, sighing. “What’s done is done.” She sounded resigned, as if she’d been expecting something like this to happen. James found that curious, but decided not to press the issue. “Let’s just go home, get to bed... and be grateful I’m not putting you on the couch.”

  2424-2425: What You Leave Behind

  “Mark my words! On this day, a decade from now, the N’xin threat will be a distant memory, forever vanquished and will never trouble our great Commonwealth ever again. I will not preside over the demise of our civilisation. We will be triumphant; we will prevail!” – President Isaac Ansara, March 1, 2424

  They didn’t look like killers, but the two boys – for that is surely what they were, ultimately; the nature of modern society meant that, at 28, they weren’t any more mature than someone who had just come-of-age in the legal sense – had both managed to botch a robbery of a jewellery store, killing the two clerks before making off with barely a couple million dollars’ worth of merchandise.

  The two idiots – one tall, one short, neither one with a brain cell between them – had barely made it three blocks from the crime scene before the police had descended on them – with the stolen merchandise still in tow in the backseat of the car.

  Now, the two culprits were sitting together, overseen by a pair of uniformed constables, having made full confessions in a bid for leniency.

  “I want these two separated as soon as their lawyers get here,” James Hunter said archly as he stared at the culprits from the observation booth next to the interrogation room. Lieutenant Gage – a short, burly man who had been a cop so long his entire view on the world had become skewered into guilty or not so guilty.

  “It’ll be done, though what good their lawyers will do is beyond me,” Gage said, his eyes glowing softly as he distributed the orders. Seconds later, one of the constables was escorting the shorter prisoner to another interrogation room. “Our case is good, yeah?”

  James smiled. “It’s airtight, don’t worry. Even if they’d asked for their lawyers sooner, we’d have an iron-clad case.”

  “Do you want them taken to arraignment?”

  James paused, then shook his head. “Let them confer with their lawyers first, then send them to court. It’ll take me that long to file the paperwork, anyway.”

  “Of course, Counsellor,” Gage said, his tone making it obvious he’d already decided to do that. His disdain for the perpetrators couldn’t be clearer… then again, he tended to view all criminals as the same, no matter if they were cold blooded killers to petty thieves. “Happy to be back in a suit?”

  James shrugged casually, a hand unconsciously tracing the hem of his suit – Amani, of course. “I got used to wearing a uniform,” he admitted. “But, yes, I am rather happy to be back living a normal life at home.”

  “Training difficult?”

  James shook his head instinctively, but paused before answering properly. “More like boring,” James said after a moment’s consideration. “As much as I am a creature of routines, the lack of variation – and an inability to express individualism – during Basic was mind-numbingly dull. The actual skills they taught you weren’t all that interesting, either… though they’re obviously essential in a military outfit.”

  Gage smiled. “Yeah, I remember the police academy being a similar experience.” He sobered. “Are you going to deploy or…”

  James started, then clamped down from answering. He’d only just received instructions regarding his ready-status a few hours earlier – he hadn’t even had a chance to tell Jennifer yet, out of fear that it may, in fact, bring on an early labour. She’s due any day now, so she’ll wanna hurry up, or I won’t be here.

  Gage seemed to sense James’ reluctance to further the discussion, and thrust a chin in the direction of the young men. “What are they looking at? A century?”

  “A couple of centuries, at least,” James said – the penal system on Bastion was fair, but rather harsh; with human life expectancy as long as it was, it had to be to maintain any semblance of deterrence; the days of getting a few decades for a murder were long gone. “If their lawyers have any brains, they’ll beg for a plea deal… and I may even be inclined to acquiesce to their begging.”

  “Jail sentences…” Gage wrinkled his nose in disapproval. “For cases like this… killing someone in cold blood, for not good reason… really makes me
wish that we still had the death penalty.”

  “So many of you cops say that,” smiled James. “Most of you would apply it to all murderers and rapists if given the chance.” It wasn’t an uncommon, or unpopular, opinion to find in law enforcement circles; after all, the police had to deal with some despicable, borderline unimaginable, things in their fight against crime, and wishes for capital punishment could usually be heard at the scene of any grisly crime.

  “Maybe not all of them,” Gage countered in good humour. Both men knew this was an argument that they’d never settle. After all, James rarely ever saw the raw, painful moments of human tragedy – he was usually only ever blessed with the sanitized images: he’d never even seen a dead body up close before, much less one that had been mutilated or ravaged by another human.

  “Actually, maybe I would,” amended Gage after a moment’s consideration. “Would simplify things so much.”

  James frowned at Gage – Bastion, never having utilized the death penalty, had actually been the first Commonwealth world to outlaw the death penalty completely via a constitutional amendment, and it was rare to find a native of the world who was a proponent for it. As far as James knew, the only time the death penalty was enforced was in cases of treason – a federal crime, and there hadn’t been such a case brought before a court in… well, a very long time.

  “Well, it would act as a deterrent,” Gage offered lamely when James appeared unconvinced.

  “It’s never done that,” commented James. “It’s only ever been used as revenge.”

  Gage ground his teeth. “Certainly, any part of justice has got to incorporate an element of revenge, Counsellor. You of all people should appreciate that aspect to it.”

  “Sometimes it’s more than just an element,” conceded James. “But even if we had capital punishment, I wouldn’t seek to apply it.” James’ voice was tinged with disapproval at the thought – he’d been opposed to the death penalty since high school… interestingly, Troy, despite having the same education and upbringing as James, was something of a fence-sitter on the issue. The dichotomy between them had resulted in some interesting conversations over the years.

  “But for scum like this…” Gage said, waving a hand theatrically at the boys in the interrogation room. They were staring at the one-sided glass – a relic from eons gone by – and as James watched, the uniformed officers started escorting the culprits out, using the exits at the north and south sides of the room. “Imagine the resources going to keep this filth alive… only for them to come out of suspension in a century or so and do it all over again.”

  “You don’t know that they’ll do that. Our penal system does have a decent rehabilitation rate.” James thrusted his chin in the direction of the youths. “And they may decide to just do the long yards in an actual prison… a lot of people find the idea of suspension more daunting than decades of monotonous routine.” Almost forty percent, if James remembered the statistic correctly.

  “They shouldn’t have a choice. They forfeit their right to choose their life’s course when they commit these felonies. They forfeit their right to life as soon as they take the life of someone else.”

  “Where I come from, Gage, a person cannot forfeit that right, it can only be taken from them.” James shrugged fractionally, unwilling to go down that rather macabre path of authoritarianism. The very notion went against everything he believed in as a libertarian – one of the few labels James actually subscribed to. “I wouldn’t seek the death penalty for the same reason the death penalty was never introduced on this planet to begin with.”

  “And why would that be?”

  James looked at Gage squarely, drawing himself up haughtily – this was an area of legal philosophy that could still get James fired-up if he got a head of steam behind him. “Because the government should never have a say in who lives, and who dies.”

  “What do you – wait, let me guess,” Gage said, holding up a hand to stall James’ retort. “The ol’ roads and bridges tripe, eh?” Gage snorted in amusement at his own joke – which James didn’t get until his VA looked up the obscure reference – and returned to his work cubical.

  James shook his head and went back to his work. He wasn’t alone five seconds, however, when he received a of message on his VA.

  It was from his wife, and it was as short as it was meaningful: It’s time.

  *

  “They’re sleeping well, almost the whole night.”

  Jennifer draped her arms around her husband as the pair stood in front of the window overlooking the nursery. Their twin girls – Samantha and Amanda, now two days old – were sleeping soundly in their cots, their mere sleeping presence a source of tranquillity that was hard to find in the Commonwealth these days – the enormity of the war was finally starting to be felt.

  “And they have a very healthy appetite,” Benicia continued unnecessarily – they’d basically sucked Jennifer dry before they saw their second sunrise. Jennifer’s old brides-maid had been a maternity nurse for a number of years now, and was one of those charged with safekeeping the twins.

  “They’re perfect,” said James, pride oozing into his voice as he squeezed her waist affectionately.

  “The doctor will have to confirm, but you should be able to take them home tonight,” Benicia said, her eyes flicking across the datapad she was holding. “How are you feeling, Jen?”

  “I’m fine, Benicia,” Jennifer said, though her messy hair, coupled with the dark bags under her eyes, made a lie of that pronouncement. “Just tired.”

  “Any soreness?”

  “Nope. I could run a marathon now, if you wanted.”

  “Impressive.” Benicia’s eyes sparkled in amusement. “I’m amazed you’re able to remain upright, to be honest,” Benicia said, smiling. “Natural births are rare these days… and you delivered twins.” She shook her head –Benicia had used artificial wombs for her three children. “Weird woman.”

  A few minutes later, Benicia had moved on to examine the other new-borns, leaving a weary James and Jennifer behind to watch over their little bundles of joy… who, if James was honest with himself, looked like nothing more than wrinkled sacks of pink flesh.

  So poetic, he thought to himself, then chided himself for distracting himself yet again. It had been two days, and he still hadn’t told Jennifer.

  “I think ours turned out better than Adlai,” James offered. He’d used the joke before, mainly to rile Troy, whose son had been born seven weeks previously, but this time, he actually meant it.

  “Well, if they take after me, that’s a given,” Jennifer teased, but James only smiled wistfully. Jennifer frowned at him. “Felicity told me that Troy’s offered her some parental rights, if she wants them.”

  “Does she?” James asked, mildly surprised. Adlai had been a standard surrogate contract, and James had assumed that Troy had had no intention of sharing his son with the egg-donor, Felicity – after all, legally, he didn’t have to. Obviously he’d changed his mind.

  “She’s… not sure,” Jennifer admitted. “She’s working on her own family right now…” James shrugged in response, falling back into a contemplative silence. “Something you want to tell me, James?”

  “Were you reading my mind?” he asked sardonically. There was a slight quake to his voice, and Jennifer scowled at her husband. James knew he had been acting distant since last night, having come back to the hospital with more clothes and toiletries for Jennifer. He’d wanted to tell her then, but Jennifer was just too exhausted.

  “Is everything alright, Jim?”

  He looked at her lazily, trying to affect an easy air about him. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” He proffered her with a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes, which seemed to be looking far away and beyond her. “I’m just tired from all the excitement.”

  She studied him evenly, holding his gaze longer than necessary. “I don’t believe you,” she said at last, releasing him from her clutches and crossing her arms. “You’ve be
en oddly silent for hours. Yesterday you were positively giddy.”

  “Things change.”

  “Who’d have thought that the novelty of children would wear off so soon?” she said archly, flicking a lock of hair behind her ear in annoyance – it promptly fell back into place, obscuring one of her fiery eyes.

  James sighed, reaching out and clasping the back of her neck, bringing their foreheads together.

  “They’ve called me up for duty.”

  In hindsight, Jennifer should have expected it. James had spent most of her pregnancy in training, only coming home every other weekend, and Jennifer had been silently enthusiastic about him coming home, and returning to some sort of normal life, when his training finished in a few weeks.

  But with the destruction of the colonies in the Achilles system two months earlier – including much of the defending Fifth Fleet (a combined loss of life measuring nearly eighteen million) – the Navy, under orders from the President himself, had called almost their entire list of Reserves for active duty. Jennifer had hoped their connections would have spared her husband from that… but no. They’d claimed her husband.

  “When?”

  He smiled mirthlessly. “As soon as my paternity leave finishes.”

  “But you don’t have – oh.”

  James nodded slowly, crossing his arms as he put his back to the window, leaning against it heavily. “My shuttle leaves for Rigel on Monday.”

  “That’s four days away!”

  “It was all the time I could buy,” he said, shrugging apologetically. “They wanted me to leave tomorrow, but the base commander cut me some slack on account of…” He gestured towards the girls. He went to elaborate, then thought better of it. “I’m sorry, Jen.”

  “How long?”

  “I put my name forward for a 24 month tour-of-duty once my training is completed…”

  “… but?”

  He sighed, chewing on his lips, his gaze not moving from his twin girls. “But, like all wars, that promise is dependent entirely on how well the war is going. Technically, they can keep me on until the war is over.” He shrugged. “Unless I’m so shit they’re better off without me.”