A Call to Arms

by Bradley Hutchinson

  Troy grimaced as he sighed – the doubling of fees, because of the mere threat of combat, was the only way to get most freighter captains to deliver any cargo these days, and had been a significant drain on the coffers and purse strings of the Commonwealth… to say nothing of private companies. A person spends more on transport these days than they do on the actual goods they purchase.

  “I’m spending about thirty million on this trip, give or take.” He snorted derisively – thirty years ago, such a sum of money would have been both unimaginable and inconsequential, especially to a Hunter, but money was much tighter these days: every business in the Commonwealth was reporting shrinking revenues, and even smaller profit margins. “And thanks to the latest tax changes, I can only claim about half of it back at the end of the year.”

  Marsden nodded in understanding. “Yeah, the Commonwealth is a bit cash-strapped at the moment.” No doubt, Marsden was paying more in tax than she was used to.

  Who isn’t, though? Before raising taxes, the government had cracked down on what expenses you could deduct… when those efforts hadn’t proffered a decent enough war chest, corporate taxes had gone up – first by three percent, then five, then another five.

  Income tax hikes on the middle and lower classes were, allegedly, next on the agenda, unpopular though it had already proven on the upper class, who had shown their displeasure at losing a fifth of their income by halving campaign contributions… or donating heavily to the ‘new bloods’, those rising stars that were beginning to push heavily against the Old Guard. I still can’t believe my father seriously thought about joining in on the madness.

  “I guess even your family is struggling a bit these days?”

  “Yes,” he drawled, more to himself than Marsden, “And the long-term effects of these tax hikes are yet to be felt… though I imagine the recently defeated Senators are going to be singing a different tune.”

  Marsden smiled toothily. “Spoken like a true son of Bastion… I heard that only three Bastion Senators survived re-election.” She sobered when he nodded confirmation. “I’m guessing you’re hoping that we won’t get into combat, then?”

  Troy smiled, bemused. There was no doubt in his mind that if such an occurrence did happen, then his life on this mortal coil was over. Surviving his first visit to Titus had bankrupted his account in the Bank of Luck – making another withdrawal would undoubtedly prove terminal. “Avoiding any kind of drama would be most preferable.”

  “I’ll do my best… but this close to the frontlines, I can’t promise anything.”

  *

  “I’ve never seen you around here.”

  Adlai Hunter jolted in mid-step, startled.

  “I’m not from around here,” he said, a lazy lilt to his voice, as he eyed the kid who had approached him from the shadows of the towering crates of supplies that Adlai was strolling through. The boy was about his age and height, but had hair and eyes as light as Adlai’s were dark, with a much darker tan. “I’m just looking around while my dad talks to people.”

  Adlai’s father had told him not to roam around far from the ship, but the cargo depot on Titus was completely and utterly boring. Adlai was twelve, after all, and, like his father, required constant sources of entertainment to keep him occupied. Such things could not be found in a rudimentary spaceport so far from the core worlds of the Commonwealth, so he was traipsing around the surrounding open-air depot on the prowl for something to do to relieve his boredom.

  “Is he important? He sounds important.”

  “Yeah, he his… just ask him.” Adlai smiled weakly at his little joke. “Has this place always been this… strange?”

  Indeed, Adlai couldn’t say he’d ever been in a place like Titus. The Citadel was a big city, supporting a huge population of millions. It had long boulevards and streets sandwiched in between big, hulking towers of steel and glass, interspersed with parks and artificial lakes and tall castle-like walls that gave the city its name.

  Titus was the exact opposite – narrow streets, many of which were not properly paved or sealed, and were too small to allow most ground vehicles you would find on Earth or Bastion, wound their way around small portable houses made of cheap, but durable, composite materials, and other pre-fab buildings that served as mess halls, playgrounds and entertainment centres. These pre-fabs were often stacked two or three high, with steel staircases wrapping themselves tightly around to afford access.

  Somehow, despite a much smaller population, the settlement seemed more crowded, more claustrophobic than the Citadel, and was much far more primal looking, with a sheen of dirt and grime covering just about everything – Adlai shuddered to think what sort of germs were going around.

  Whereas Bastion smelled safe, Titus IV – or at least, the portions of the refugee camp he could experience – smelled wild and untamed. Everything about it felt, smelled and sounded alien.

  It smells, sounds and looks like desperation. The camps on Titus may not have been Hell… but Adlai couldn’t imagine Hell being any worse than the state this place was in… the fact that there were other places in the Commonwealth apparently just like this threatened to make Adlai nauseous.

  “Who is your dad, then?”

  “Troy Hunter,” Adlai said, frowning. It wasn’t a question he got asked very often – at school, everyone knew who he was, and what family he belonged to. But this wasn’t Bastion. This place wasn’t even Earth, which, while very different to Bastion, felt homely whenever Adlai was there. “I’m Adlai. Who the hell are you?”

  If the youth was offended by the rather aggressive questioning, he didn’t let on. He took the attitude in his stride. “My name’s Mackenzie,” the boy said after a moment’s consideration. “Mackenzie Spencer.”

  He extended a hand, and Adlai – never comfortable with the art of the shake – took it loosely. Mackenzie’s skin was dry and coarse, not at all like Adlai’s, and he also enjoyed a natural tan that was superior to Adlai’s.

  “How long are you going to be here for?”

  Adlai shrugged. “Dunno. I didn’t wanna come, but dad made me… something about knowing what’s going on around you. How long have you been here for?”

  Mackenzie seemed to ponder the answer to that, shrugging. “Too long, I guess. Our local calendar is different to the Commonwealth standard…” He sized Adlai up, as if evaluating his dress sense – after all, Adlai was trussed up like someone from the upper-classes of Bastion, not like a local. “Did you wanna get outta here, have a look around? Not that there’s all that much to do or see…”

  “Is there a place more exciting than here?” Adlai asked, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Can this place even be exciting?”

  “Some of it can be, yeah,” Mackenzie said, sounding a little hurt – Adlai couldn’t understand why though. It was, after all, the truth – the camp had looked entirely uninteresting during the descent, and the ground-level view hadn’t improved on it one little bit. “We can find my friend Jayesh. He’s a bit older than us, but he’s fun to be around… He’s funny.”

  “I imagine there are a lot of other kids on this planet,” Adlai said, trying to sound casual while not causing any more offence. Maybe dad is right – I do have a big mouth.

  “Lots,” Mackenzie replied. “Almost as many as the adults. There’s too many to keep track of. There are so many circles, so many groups, it’s like, really scary…”

  Adlai frowned. Coming from the Citadel, he was used to being surrounded by lots of different people, but he only really knew a tiny fraction of them – the social circle his family belonged to was both small and rather exclusive.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Adlai said echoing a trick his father had taught him – faked sincerity. Back home on Bastion, he belonged to several cliques – being the son of a rich tycoon, you were born into cliques and couldn’t escape them, even if you wanted to. “You’re not part of a… a circle?”

  Mackenzie shook his head. “Nah, I’m a loner. I pref
er being on my own.”

  “Oh.” Adlai simpered. While he did enjoy being on his own sometimes, he couldn’t imagine not being part of a group. It would be so… so isolating. Being around people, for Adlai, was a freeing experience. “Do you have any friends?”

  Adlai paused, and Aldai thought his question may have been a bit too brash. “I have Jayesh,” Mackenzie said. “But he’s a bit older than me, and he’s starting to discover girls, so I’m, uh, not as interesting anymore… There was Lindsey, but she left a while ago…”

  “And you haven’t discovered girls?”

  Mackenzie shook his head, the action tossing his hair around like a salad. “Girls are…” Mackenzie blanched and shuddered.

  Adlai grinned, having had a similar revelation a few months earlier – he’d gotten drunk at a party, which lead to being friendly with a girl named Erin, and, after quite a lot of fumbling around in the dark in one of the spare bedrooms, had decided he did not like the female anatomy.

  As it turned out, though, Erin – who was just as equally inebriated – wasn’t really a fan of the male anatomy either, so it had been a rather poignant learning experience for both teens.

  “Believe me,” Adlai said gravely, “I know what you mean.”

  *

  As it turned out, one of the Dock Masters on Titus was an old flame of Troy’s – not surprising, really, considering how many Troy had had over the years, before Adlai had put a road-bump on his sex life. The weird thing for Troy was finding one off-world – his social circle, after all, rarely felt the need to travel the Commonwealth, opting instead to live their lives in safety and comfort on Bastion.

  “When I’m back on Bastion, I may hit you up,” Lewis said, a sly smirk playing at his lips. He hadn’t changed at all since that night on Bastion, back in… well, near the turn of the century, Troy mused. It had had to have been almost 30 years ago… Or more.

  Lewis had told Troy that he’d been on Titus for nearly three years, volunteering to help shore up the void in the administrative staff following the N’xin raid in 2433. He was one of half-a-dozen people from Bastion, with most of the other replacement staff hailing from Elysium. Which makes sense, considering that people from that world have far more experience dealing with bureaucracy.

  “Sure,” Troy replied, not-quite sincerely, but not quite lying either – whatever memory he had of Lewis (who remembered the night with Troy far more vividly than Troy) had been filed away some time ago, leaving Troy with only a minor impression of the guy. “But I am not on Bastion as much these days. I’m spending more and more time on Earth.”

  That wasn’t so much a lie as it was a half-truth; he was spending more time on Earth these days, but his home was still firmly on Bastion. But it was to Earth that he was going to be going to now – his father had requested his presence amid a big meeting between the various political and corporate leaders of the Commonwealth. Not sure why I have to go there, but I’ve been summoned…

  Lewis cocked his head in acknowledgement of the potential rebuff. “Well, I won’t be leaving Titus any time soon. Still lots to do.” He waved a jaunty farewell and backed away, pivoting on his heel after a few steps and walking off without looking over his shoulder as Adlai walked past him.

  “Hi, dad.”

  Troy frowned at his son, mildly irked at having been kept waiting – he did not enjoy being here. “You disappeared for a long time,” he accused.

  If his son cared that he’d delayed their departure from Titus, he didn’t show it. Indeed, Adlai had come back to the spaceport – after disappearing for nearly six hours – in high spirits, laughing along with a trio of children of various ages, and had taken his sweet time to say his farewells.

  “Eh.” Adlai shrugged. “I lost track of time.”

  “Make some friends, did you?”

  “Yeah, I guess. They seemed nice. Mackenzie was kinda cute.” Adlai’s eyes flashed as his virtual-vision powered up – no doubt he was booting up one of his games, and so, his interest in conversing with his old man could no longer be measured by conventional means.

  Still, it’s good that he’s starting to take a more mature outlook on the people around him.

  Troy sighed inwardly, deciding to drop the conversation for the time being. His son’s disappearance on Titus may have been cause for concern a couple of centuries ago, but these days, he could keep track of his son’s health and whereabouts just by tracking his cybernetics… and if he really had to, he could just shoot a comlink to his son… though Troy had his doubts as to whether or not his son would actually answer.

  Not that Adlai was great at conversation these days, at least with anyone over the age of twenty. Talking with Adlai was like pulling teeth, but apparently it was normal for a kid his age. Troy knew from his sister-in-law that his nieces were going through a similar phase. Poor Jennifer, dealing with two girls all on her own.

  “Are we good to go, Troy?”

  Troy blinked, turning away from the steel-coloured bulkhead he’d been staring at. “Yeah, Sylvia, we’re good. Take us home.”

  *

  “Captain Hunter, come in.”

  Admiral Jeremy Hawthorne strode around his desk a little too briskly, the barrel-chested, broad-shouldered veteran extending his arms warmly as the mildly perplexed captain crossed the threshold into the office.

  James waited until the door had sealed shut behind him before speaking. “You wanted to see me, Admiral?” Captain James Hunter had been about to stand at attention, but the informal – not to mention quite warm – greeting told him that military etiquette wasn’t needed here – rumour had it that Hawthorne had always preferred a more relaxed working environment, preferring people to be themselves.

  “Indeed I did,” the admiral said, sitting on the edge of his desk, gesturing for James to take a seat. Hunter did so after they shook hands, though continued to remain somewhat rigid. Despite Hawthorne’s more relaxed setting, military etiquette was hard to break easily.

  Well, I knew this meeting would have to happen, James thought darkly. Even in the most laid-back military outfits, openly criticizing a superior officer – no matter how well founded – was still frowned on, if not openly prohibited.

  “Did you get a look at the new MSU’s?”

  The latest generation of Mechanical Support Units had arrived the day before, and were now being distributed to select squads for field use. An exoskeleton construct made of newly developed carbon-fibres and other alloy materials, it acted as a second-skin to infantry, the suits augmented a person’s physical strength, speed and endurance, and were particularly useful for people who hadn’t had extensive genetic enhancements like James had.

  “Formidable machines, but they’re still too bulky for my tastes… but since I won’t be using them, my opinion doesn’t count for very much… but I don’t think you called me here to talk about the new infantry gadgets.” He paused, but Hawthorne gave no indication one way or the other, so James decided to plough on. “Admiral, if this meeting is about the report I filed, criticizing Admiral Morrow and his crack-brained attack on the Horus system, then I stand by what I said. If that bumbling fool had paid attention to me, or those who supported my conclusions, then at worst he’d be a dead hero, instead of just dead.” He shook his head. “As it is his failure at Horus made retaking this system much harder than it had to be.”

  “Is that so?” Hawthorne asked, and James wasn’t sure if he was trying to be menacing or not. But James was, surprisingly, assured of his convictions in this matter, and would not back down, no matter who he was talking to.

  “Yes, it is,” James said with finality. If he was going to be damned, then he was going to be heard. After all, he knew he was right – and knew of several other officers who felt as he did.

  “Well, Captain,” Hawthorne said, smiling warmly even as he stressed James’ rank. “I actually wanted to congratulate you on a job well done in the Cestus system.”

  James frowned. “I wasn’t aware dres
sing down a superior officer and losing a ship in battle was worthy of praise…”

  “Normally, it wouldn’t be,” Hawthorne said, letting out a polite chuckle. “So, don’t get used to doing it, but, unofficially, you’re right: Morrow was an idiot, but thankfully, God rest his soul, the idiot isn’t in charge anymore. As for losing your ship…” Hawthorne shrugged. “Your ships’ death throes took out the enemy flagship during the battle, which is what allowed us to win.”

  “And at this point,” Shanthi pointed out, “There are very few commanders out there who haven’t lost a ship to the N’xin.” She shrugged. “Some have even lost two.”

  “I suppose,” James affirmed diplomatically and as modestly as he could. It still hurt to think back on the memory, his ship in flames, its hull pitted and scored, careening into the N’xin dreadnaught as he watched helplessly from an escape pod. The resulting fireball had been beautifully destructive.

  The same could not be said about the loss of so much of his crew, including Commander Marquez, who had been sucked out of a hull breach on his way to an escape pod. James had nearly died then, too, and was still unsure just how it was that he’d survived and Marquez hadn’t.

  Despite their relationship having soured in recent months, the loss of his XO still stung.

  James shook the thought off. That wasn’t why he had been summoned here, surely. “The loss of the Englewood is –”

  “Not why I called you here,” Hawthorne said, cutting him off with a dismissive wave. He gestured to the other person in the room, who had remained silent so far – a dark-skinned woman with short black hair and dark, though intelligent, eyes. “This is Captain Shanthi, my Chief-of-Staff.”

  James had met Shanthi before, at one of the many, many briefings he’d attended prior to the Commonwealth’s assault on the Cestus system. She’d been the commanding officer of the Horatio when the war had started, and had, upon the cruiser’s destruction, been promoted higher up the chain-of-command. But never into the admiralty. Considering her career dead-end, he admired her dedication to the uniform… much like Captain Yuen.