A Call to Arms

by Bradley Hutchinson

  He looked at her oddly, then nodded. She knew it wasn’t combat he was after. James, the noble spirit that he was, wanted to know that he was making a difference, that the sacrifices he was making was worth something… and being stuck behind a desk, being a lawyer, wasn’t exactly making his sacrifices worthwhile.

  “Yeah… how are Troy and Adlai doing anyway?”

  “They’re fine… Troy still isn’t talking to you, is he?”

  James glowered. “Not really. We drop a few lines to each other every few weeks but we always end up bringing up old arguments… he’s such a fucking twerp.” He sighed. “Anyway, I better be off – my allocated time is almost up, and I have a report to finish up and file.”

  She didn’t want him to go, but knew she had no say – or control – over it. Instead, Jennifer offered a sad smile. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  *

  “Ah, there you are, Ensign Hunter.”

  “Captain Abbas?” James Hunter snapped to attention, pausing the simulation he’d been pouring over, and offered an almost-perfect salute. He had been the sole occupant of the simulator, testing various scenarios that he had developed in his spare time – and even while on duty; being an attaché to an admiral didn’t exactly entail a great deal of effort on his part.

  With all the bureaucracy I deal with, it’s like I never left public service.

  The short, bearded captain of the Intrepid returned the salute lazily, before waving off Morris dismissively. He waited until Morris was well and truly out of earshot before turning back to James.

  “Keeping busy?”

  James made a sweeping gesture to the various holograms that floated in the air – golden orbs representing star systems, scrolls of text detailing what every system had to offer in the war. It was a data goldmine, and the algorithms and strategies James was working on were complex – to an ordinary civilian, they’d be lost and confused within seconds.

  “Running my own private little war, sir.”

  Abbas studied the holograms intently, deep in thought. “You’re a strategist?”

  James smiled sheepishly. “No, just someone with a partial interest in it. A friend of mine at Basic was into strategy games, and I’ve been interested in the concept ever since.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’m terribly good, though… not like she was.”

  Abbas cocked his head, arching an eyebrow. “Why do you say that, Ensign?”

  “Because the N’xin keep kicking my ass. Sir.”

  Abbas chortled, his eyes flicking over the simulation, taking long moments to study it. James wasn’t sure if he understood everything being displayed – even by James’ standards, it was fairly idiosyncratic.

  “You’ve lost Elysium?”

  “Temporarily, sir.” Almost reluctantly, James added. “I hope.”

  “Did you sacrifice it like a pawn, or did you make a mistake.”

  James frowned. “I’m not big on sacrifices, Captain. Taking Elysium cost the N’xin their garrisons in the Horus system.”

  “Hardly worth the cost,” Abbas said, his eyes narrowing as he gestured to the icon representing Earth – in this simulation, its defences had been depleted significantly, and was now vulnerable. “How long can Earth hold out?”

  James shrugged as he regarded the besieged planet. “The simulation isn’t over,” he explained carefully as he glanced at the datapad he was holding. “But I’d estimate, in this simulation, Earth would fall within six months.”

  Abbas grunted, disappointed. James didn’t know much about him, having only partial access to personnel files, but he knew that the Norfolk’s CO hailed from the Mid-West of North America.

  “Don’t give up your day job, Ensign,” Abbas said, his eyes twinkling. “Speaking of which… I’m told you want to become a Line officer, Ensign?”

  “Yes, sir,” James said, frowning. It had been nearly six months since he’d been posted to Elysium, and he’d been beginning to think that he was going to be stuck in this tedious job well into the next year – if not longer. “Though I’m still in the –”

  “Yes, yes, I know all about your special circumstances, Ensign,” Abbas said gruffly, his beady eyes narrowing. “The Intrepid currently has a temporary opening, suitable for a trainee. Interested?”

  “Sir, there are other, more experienced officers –” James cut himself off when he realized what Abbas was offering him. Freedom. “Yes, sir, I’m very interested.”

  Abbas smiled coldly. “Excellent. I’ll have the orders drawn up immediately. Report to me by 2200 tonight, or get left behind.”

  Chapter Three

  “This is not how I’d envisioned my first tour of duty ending.”

  James was trying to keep the tone light, but the circumstances around him precluded any sort of real humour from his remarks. According to his virtual-array’s chronometer, he had been stranded in the lifeboat for almost fifty hours. But it feels much longer than that.

  “Neither did I,” Alice Chamberlain murmured. The two of them were nestled up together, gently floating in the no gravity environment. James opting to keep the temperature in the lifeboat lower than normal to conserve battery power – the longer their battery lasted, the better chance they had of surviving long enough to have their distress call answered.

  Though that’s probably not happening, he thought, but kept it to himself. As the senior officer present – thanks mostly to a technicality in the chain-of-command – he had to keep their morale up as much as possible.

  Their ship, the Intrepid, had been destroyed by a N’xin ambush; she hadn’t gone out with a whimper though – of the three N’xin frigates that had engaged the Commonwealth destroyer, two had been destroyed, and James and Alice had watched out the viewport as the lone survivor limped off into FTL just minutes after they’d ejected in the escape pod.

  “Mind you, this is only marginally worse than my posting on Elysium.”

  Alice snorted, though James didn’t find any real amusement in it. “We’ll be found,” he continued, saying it with a confidence he didn’t feel. He left unsaid the uncertainty of their being found alive or not – they had enough battery power to power their SOS beacon for another day, but only enough oxygen for another few hours.

  “Dead or alive?”

  James blanched, then let out a slow sigh. “Preferably alive.” His sigh emerged as a large mist; cold as it was, it hurt to sigh. They sat in silence for another few minutes, each second marked by a soft squawk from the tiny control panel that was – again, thanks to James’ tinkering – their only source of light.

  “Do I even want to know how cold it is?” Alice asked through chattering teeth. Rugged up with what blankets they had, and mashed up as close as she could get to James, the only part of her that he could see was the cleft in her chin.

  “Probably not,” he decided, looking at the temperature gauge on his virtual-vision – 2.2 degrees Celsius. Now he felt even colder.

  “Was it cold where you grew up?”

  “Bastion rarely ever goes below fifteen degrees,” he admitted, devoutly missing the year-long near-tropical climate. “And even then, those areas that do aren’t well populated.”

  “So you’ve never seen snow?” The idea seemed to shock her.

  “There are a few alpine regions on Bastion, but they’re remote and not very popular. My wife and I went to the Swiss Alps as part of our honeymoon, though.” James thought back happily on the memory – the only thing more fun than the skiing had been cuddling in front of a blazing fire in a log cabin. “Outside of that, I’ve never seen snow… or fog.”

  “Wow,” Alice said softly. “I was born in New York, but moved to Phoenix when I was ten.”

  “You must be cold,” James said, and Alice just shivered in response.

  “You got any family?”

  “Lots of extended family,” he told her, not all that comfortable in divulging personal information, even if he was about to die alone. “A wife and tw
o daughters.”

  “That’s nice,” Alice replied softly, a fine mist emerging from her mouth. “How old are they?”

  James gave the slightest of pauses before answering. He was uncomfortable with this subject. “Almost a year old.”

  “You must miss them.”

  “Naturally,” James said, hoping to have put as much finality into the word as he could muster. This line of inquiry was… disconcerting. Few on the Intrepid had been interested in his background, and James had likewise been disinterested in knowing where his colleagues hailed from; as long as they did their job efficiently he didn’t care.

  “Don’t mind me,” Alice announced abruptly, and promptly rolled over so that her stomach was pressing against James’. “My face is cold.” And she cozied up to his chest, one of her frozen cheeks leaning heavily into his thermal blanket. “I come from a family of four, but I’m the youngest, and the only one left to get married.”

  “Really?” James offered, knowing that an outside observer would assume he was in some sort of physical pain. “I’m the youngest of six, myself.”

  “Wow that is a big family.” Alice looked up at him. “Did you ever think you’d die out here, alone?”

  “I was rather hoping I wouldn’t die at all.” He attempted to shrug, and was only partially successful. “I’ve got a re-life policy at home,” he told her, silently wondering as to how long it would be before a clone was actually activated and grown.

  “Wish I did,” Alice murmured. “Too expensive… and besides, how many people die at my age?”

  “How old are you?” he asked, curious. He could have just called that information up on his virtual-array, but conversation seemed to be important to her right now…

  “I turned 31 last month.”

  “I –” James was cut off by a frantic wailing of the console. He linked his virtual-array to it and let out a whoop of excitement. “They found us!”

  *

  James spent a few hours in the sickbay of the cruiser Norfolk, before being released to the quarters he’d be sharing on their way back to D-44, the main staging area for the Commonwealth fleet in this sector. He’d already been assigned to a new vessel – the Potemkin, another destroyer, but he was just relieved to have solid ground under him again, even if it was just deck plating and an artificial gravity generator keeping him on it.

  The Intrepid had carried a crew of 104, and only twenty had made it out alive; James was one of only four officers to escape, the most senior of which was an engineering lieutenant who was barely conscious.

  “Bridge to Ensign Hunter.”

  James, who had been standing in the center of hexagonal room, strolled over to the desk that occupied one of the facings and punched a button. “Go ahead.”

  “There’s a personal transmission for you, from Bastion.”

  James frowned. It was rare to get a personal transmission – aside from being expensive to send, it could also interfere with official military communications. Someone must have pulled some strings to get through to him.

  “Patch it through,” James said, sitting down, curious as to who would be calling him. He was hoping Jennifer, and was mildly depressed when Troy’s visage appeared.

  “Troy? What do you want?”

  “You greet everyone like that?” his brother grumped. “We heard what happened, I was just calling in to see if you were alright. Taken me ages to get through to you.”

  “I’m fine,” James said, shrugging minimally to affect an air of dismissiveness. “Is Jennifer there with you?”

  Troy shook his head, brushing his fringe back – his hair was threatening to advance past his collarbone, and had been dyed a slick blue-black. “It’s actually a little after midnight here, James, so I suspect she’s in bed. And, before, you ask, everyone is fine. They’re all good. Even me.”

  James rolled his eyes. “I don’t care about you,” he teased, and Troy affected a look of shock, but it sobered quickly. “I was just hoping I could talk to her. I miss her.”

  Troy nodded, seemingly in understanding. James found that hard to believe. Even as a parent, Troy had refused to settle down with anyone, content to raise his son on his own. “So now that you’re ships been blown up from underneath you, does this mean you’ll be coming home? Put this war business behind you?”

  James frowned, leaning back in his seat, memories of old arguments with his twin coming back – Troy had been quite vocal in his opposition to James signing up to fight, and in the eight or so months James had been deployed, that opposition had not quietened down.

  “I don’t think so, Troy,” James answered with a calm he didn’t feel. “I’ve already got my next assignment.”

  Troy genuinely seemed surprised by that. “You nearly died, James.”

  “People did die, Troy,” James snapped. “They’re dying all the time. Imagine if every soldier called it a day every time they had a close call. There’d be no one left fighting.” He left unsaid the fact that it was up to the Navy, not the individual, when they were through.

  “The Navy is in no danger of running out of competent soldiers.” Troy said, a hand waving dismissively. “What about the next close call? You have no idea what this is doing to Jennifer, Jim –”

  “Don’t do that,” James hissed, holding up a finger to forestall any further comment. “Don’t insult my intelligence by being so blatantly manipulative. It won’t work.”

  “Well I wouldn’t have to resort to manipulating you if you weren’t so intent on being a fucking hero!” Troy snapped back, his cheeks reddening furiously. His nostrils flared and he tossed his head back so angrily James thought it would fall off. “This was a bad idea.”

  And with that, James’ link to his home ended, and he was left to stare at the blank screen for long moments until the door chimed. It was of no comfort to him that his family seemed to be doing well without his absence – indeed, that thought had rather macabre insinuations: he wasn’t needed.

  “Come!” he called out absently. He wasn’t sure who it would be – he shared these quarters with two other officers, both of whom were on duty at the moment and, he assumed, wouldn’t bother prefacing their entrance – he was the guest here, not them.

  “Alice?” he asked, rising from the desk as the elegant blonde ambled in through the iris doors. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was, uh, just came by to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m fine,” he lied as he eyed her over. He’d never really paid attention to her on the Intrepid – they seldom saw each other, and were in different departments on the ship – but now that they weren’t wearing twenty layers of clothing and blankets, he realised that she was quite beautiful – long, flowing, natural blonde hair that reached past her chest, high cheek bones accentuating close-knit, intelligent green eyes. “But thank you for coming.”

  “Have you received your next assignment?”

  He nodded. “The Potemkin, part of Admiral Demarco’s task force. You?”

  She snorted. “I’ve been reassigned to the garrison on Callaway.” She took a quiet few steps up to him – James was a full head taller than her, even without wearing military boots. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been very quiet… You did nearly die.”

  “Why does everyone keep reminding me of that?” he asked, taking an involuntary step back. He wasn’t certain he liked the way she was looking at him, with that pouty look of a sultry temptress. Like most married couples, exclusivity wasn’t much of a thing these days, especially among the upper echelons of society, but neither James nor Jennifer had ever discussed the idea of having fun on the side. “I’m fine. My not being very… communicative… is perfectly normal for me. Unlike my brother, I’m not big on unnecessary conversation.” He nodded emphatically. “Really, I’ll live, Alive. I’m fine.”

  She took a step towards him, once again closing the distance. They were toe-to-toe now. “I’m just saying, it’s –” one of her hands caressed his hip lazily, and while Jame
s fought it, he couldn’t help but feel a bit hard for the woman, “– a little cold on this ship.”

  James sighed inwardly, trying to supress the animal instincts that too-often consumed his twin. But he’d been alone for a while now, and hadn’t felt close to any of his colleagues since leaving Bastion. There was a little more Troy in him than he wanted to admit, after all, and he was having to fight those primal urges down now.

  He failed to do so. Miserably.

  *

  “Last night was a mistake.”

  Alice Chamberlain looked up from her breakfast – oatmeal, with a side of buttered toast – as James Hunter sat opposite her, letting his metal tray glide onto the tabletop lazily (the artificial gravity on the Norfolk was barely half that of Earth, so one did not walk the corridors so much as coast). The mess hall at this hour of the morning was nearly empty, and Hunter was keeping his voice carefully modulated so as not to arouse suspicion.

  “Oh?” Alice asked. “I thought it was fun.”

  “It was,” James admitted, almost unhappily. “But I am married, and I’m not looking to expand into new markets.”

  “And you think I’m going to force you to choose between us?” Alice frowned, not sure whether to be amused or annoyed. She supposed it was kind of sweet that he was acting this way. “I wasn’t expecting you to leave her… It was just sex, James.” Alice said, her voice rising marginally. James cringed as he gave a quick look around, but the few people in the mess hall didn’t seem to be interested. “A good ol’ fashioned romp. A way to let off steam after a near-death experience.”

  She fell silent, and he cocked his head to the side and gave her an appraising look. “Just so we’re clear, then.” The words were clinical and precise, but he softened the delivery with a slight smile that Alice returned.

  “Absolutely.”

  *

  James silently watched the frigate Atlantis – a boxy, ungainly craft with a narrow profile, all of a hundred meters long, glide away from the Norfolk before it accelerated to FTL speeds. As it disappeared, he felt a huge relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, allowing him to breathe properly again.