Space: Above and Beyond 1 - Space: Above and Beyond

by Peter Telep

  Mom took a step away, as if he had some contagious disease. "You joined the military on a chance? You're willing to die on a possibility?"

  Nathan was chilled by the coincidence of her choice of words. Was there some strange fate waving its hand over them? It was true that she probably knew him better than anyone, even Kylen, but was that enough to account for what she had said?

  He'd never know, but at least there was one certainty: he would—no matter what—cling to the possibility that Kylen may still be alive.

  Somehow, he had to explain his reasoning to Mom. Somehow. "The tanks had me thrown off. The Corps was my only chance to get to her." Seeing their disapproving glares sent him bolting to his feet. His chair threatened to fall but didn't. "And if there's a possibility that giving my life will get her back—"

  "Nathan, you're young," Dad interrupted. "You see everything as life or death."

  "Dad, I've seen these things we're at war with—"

  "When you're older, you'll understand."

  He couldn't believe what he was hearing! Parental clichés! Rhetoric! He shouted, "These aliens massacred hundreds of—"

  Mom grabbed the pocket of his shirt. "Nothing is worth dying for!"

  About to scream back at his mother, Nathan froze as Shane materialized from the gloom of the dining room. She had trouble meeting anyone's gaze, probably feeling like an intruder.

  "There's something I'd die for," she said, a hint of longing creeping into her voice. "I'd give my life for a chance to argue with my parents." She slipped back into the darkness, leaving Nathan stunned.

  As Mom and Dad hung in the silence she had created, Nathan moved to the counter, dropped to one knee, and began picking up pieces of the dish. He felt Mom's hand come to rest on the back of his head.

  After dinner, Nathan and Shane went to see Kylen's father, who lived a few kilometers away. Dad loaned him the XK-26, a new, sporty version of the old model family transport. Nathan still thought of the new model as a large, battery-wasting boat.

  Despite the circumstances, Kylen's dad greeted them warmly at the door and invited them in for a drink. He seated them in his den and switched off the TV, saying, "Don't need any more bad news."

  The man had changed. Notice of his only daughter's possible death had leeched away the color in his cheeks, robbed him of the desire to shave, and had made his eyes appear as though they hadn't been closed for a week. He'd lost weight, too, the beer gut hanging down perhaps only half as far as it used to. He scratched his chest through a heavily wrinkled shirt, then went off to fetch them beers. "We won't stay long," Nathan assured Shane.

  "As long as you want, I don't mind," she said. "I know this is important to you."

  He thought of her overhearing his fight with his parents. "I wish you hadn't—"

  "Don't be embarrassed. And I owe you an apology. I feel like a jerk. I shouldn't have said anything."

  Nathan summoned all of his sincerity. "I'm glad you did. And besides. Now we're even."

  Her brow lowered in puzzlement.

  "You know about my past and I know about yours. That night you hit Hawkes—"

  "You were up?"

  He nodded. And she understood.

  Kylen's dad returned with their beers and lowered himself with a groan into an easy chair in which he now probably spent most of his time. He wasn't drinking, just repeatedly staring at the remote in his hand as he ran an index finger over it. He'd just shut off the TV, yet it was obvious that the device was his only link to the knowledge of whether Kylen had lived or died. Certainly, someone from the Tellus complex would call him, but that call would most assuredly arrive after a list of the dead was already read on the news. Tellus mission security and confidentiality would fail. Too many people wanted to know. Corruption at Tellus would be as bad as it was in Washington.

  "If you want the TV back on that's fine," Nathan said. Kylen's dad looked relieved. "I'll keep the volume low... so we can talk."

  Nathan swallowed. "I really only have one thing to say, sir. I just... wish I had been with her when they had attacked. I know it's not my fault, but I feel like I abandoned her. I tried to stow away, but they caught me. And so she went alone. She was going to live our dream for both of us. And I was going to meet up with her... somehow."

  "Do you remember when my wife died?" Kylen's father asked Nathan.

  "I guess I was about seventeen. That was about the time I met Kylen."

  "You two weren't married, but you felt something that a lot of married people don't feel. And that something was torn away from you, the same way it was when I lost my wife." He leaned forward, setting down the remote on the arm of his chair and bringing his hands together. "You do not get over it. And now—maybe—I've lost Kylen, too."

  Shane rose. "I need to—"

  "Down the hall to your left," Kylen's father said.

  They watched Shane leave, then Nathan said solemnly, "I'll try to find her."

  "You know what I want most from you?"

  "What's that?"

  Kylen's father got out of his chair, went down on his knees before Nathan, took both of Nathan's hands in his own and squeezed them until it hurt. He spoke slowly, and there was a sudden ferocity in his voice. "I want you to go out there and bring these vermin to their knees. Get them for getting her."

  "We still don't know she's dead," Nathan insisted.

  The old man let out a shivery sigh. "I'm starting to give up hope. So now I'm going to put my hope in you, the hope that you'll kill as many of them as you can." Shane came from the hall and stopped, her eyes widening at the sight of Kylen's father on his knees. She looked lost, not knowing if she should enter the den or not. Then Kylen's father saw her. Pretending nothing was wrong, he returned to his chair.

  "You ready?" Nathan asked her.

  "Sure."

  They told Kylen's father that they'd see themselves out. They left the broken man in his chair, his drawn face cast in the flickering glow of the TV.

  nineteen

  I can get up myself.

  Probably. But it looks like you could use a hand... and I'm offerin' one.

  Ain't easy for me to recognize a helping hand.

  If that's a thank you, don't worry about it. Someday you'll pay me back.

  Cooper Hawkes had made the decision to go AWOL.

  But he kept second-guessing it by reminding himself of the good things about military life, about the feeling of belonging to a team.

  He would never be alone in the Corps.

  I don't want to die for nothing!

  By marching at a steadily increasing rate, he thought he could get away from his doubts, away from the guilt. He tried as he had been for the past couple of hours to ignore the metal birds that squalled in the air. He told himself that their sounds would eventually become meaningless white noise, but he knew that was a lie. One part of him wanted to run back to his bunk and relax for the next forty-eight hours, then join the squadron. The other part, well, the other part was stronger.

  Ahead, the road curved to the right, and the tree trunks and giant fronds that fenced it off were suddenly shimmering. Hawkes detected the rattle of an unconventional engine, definitely not electric. A single headlight burned through a thin mist and drew toward him. He squinted, and behind the glare he saw an old motorcycle, one that lacked anti-grav capability and still had wheels. The bike slowed and veered across the road, finally coming to a stop before him.

  "She dumped you out and left you to walk, didn't she... "

  He was built like an oil drum and had neither shaved his face nor trimmed his graying hair in the past couple of years. His black, open-faced helmet with a small spike mounted atop it made him a human bayonet, and his black leather vest did little to contain his sagging, gorilla-like chest. The digitized, three-dimensional tattoos on his bicep seemed to jump out at Hawkes. The largest one was a grim reaper with a rifle instead of a scythe, and beneath the figure were the words: A.U. #5475 CYBORG UNDERTAKERS.

  Chug
Chug Chug Chug . . . Hawkes could barely hear the biker over the engine. Realizing' this, the beefy man reached up with stubby fingers and turned a key. The bike sputtered into silence. "I said, she dumped you out and left you to walk."

  "Oh, you think I was with a woman in a car?" Hawkes asked.

  "Course I do. Lemme see now"—he gave Hawkes an appraising once-over—"you're a Marine. Flyboy. You don't got to be embarrassed about it. Where you headed?" The biker lifted a thumb over his shoulder. "Hope it ain't back that way. Ain't nuthin' for ten, fifteen klicks, and even then all you're gonna find's a little store that—dammit—is closed."

  Hawkes absently bit the inside of his cheek, sinking into the dismal news. "I guess I was going that way."

  "Tell you what. I'm swinging past the base. You wanna lift? I don't mind helping out a fellow service man." The biker lifted his brow, and his forehead became grooved like the tires of his ride.

  Before Hawkes could answer, a particularly loud ramble tore apart the night sky. A wing of SA-43s whooshed by, climbing from about a thousand kilometers toward space.

  "I tried to get my own ass back in this fight, but the Army told me I'm too old. Reserves won't even take me. Sides, I guess they'd make me cut my hair. I thought the A.I. War was the last one we were ever gonna have. I lost a lot of buddies back then. At least we got a museum to honor their memories, but it just doesn't seem like enough. I went there once, but I... couldn't stay long."

  "Why?"

  The biker looked puzzled over Hawkes's question. Hawkes wondered about the reaction. It was an innocent question, a simple one.

  "You've never been in combat, have you?" the biker asked, as though accusing Hawkes of a crime.

  "I, uh... yeah."

  Chortling, the biker unbuttoned his chin strap and folded his arms across his chest. "You're too young. You're talkin' 'bout simulated, ain't you..."

  Hawkes looked in the direction of the base. "Maybe I will take that ride."

  "I thought so," the biker said, and Hawkes wasn't sure if the big man was referring to the question of combat or the fact that Hawkes did, after all, want the lift.

  The biker leaned forward. "Hop on." He kick-started the motorcycle to life.

  Hawkes complied, and, over the roar, he shouted, "I was on Mars. And I saw my buddy die."

  The engine ceased. The biker craned his neck back toward Hawkes. "Then you were with those Marines I heard about on the net."

  "Yeah. And if you'll do me a favor, I don't exactly wanna go back to the base."

  The biker let him off at a chain-link fence with a warning sign:

  KEEP OUT. PROPERTY OF U.S.M.C.

  VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO

  THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.

  "Hey, you want, I'll wait for you," the biker called after him.

  Hawkes paused to glance back at him. "You don't have to."

  "Think I will. Out of respect... for them."

  Hawkes scaled the fence and jumped down into the restricted area. The grounds were encircled by trees and carpeted with a thick layer of St. Augustine sod. Once past the perimeter foliage, he arrived in a vast clearing dotted with waist-high white crosses. He remembered how Shane had described the place as looking like Arlington National Cemetery, but that comparison didn't mean anything to him. He passed cross after cross, then finally arrived at the mound of dirt that was still damp and made his nose crinkle a bit with the smell of humus. Now, the deeper pitch of transports taking off accompanied the hum of insects.

  Shrouded in shadows, Hawkes scanned the landscape. He was confident that he wouldn't be spotted, but if he were, he'd feel more foolish than concerned about the punishment for trespassing. They would not court-martial him for breaking into a cemetery but they'd certainly make him explain his act. That, he considered, would be punishment enough.

  His gaze lowered to the mound. "Pags, I, uh, I wanted to say something when they buried you, but I didn't know what. And now that I'm here, I still don't. 'Sides, they don't let anybody say much at those things."

  Teachers had told Hawkes that he needed to learn to express himself better, that he was a wonderful observer and a fast learner, but if he couldn't convey what he knew to others in both verbal and written forms, then much of his talent might be locked inside him. Simple moments had left him speechless.

  Something on the vast scale of parting words to a dead friend was a universe out of reach.

  But he forged on. "I guess I just wanted to say... you were the only guy who was ever okay to me."

  While a warm Gulf breeze swept over him, he sat on the mound and beat a fist onto his thigh over his inability to convert thoughts into words. "I wish, somehow, you could just feel my insides. And know. Maybe right now you can. I doubt it." He took up a handful of dirt. "I wish I could know what you feel now. I thought, before, I knew what it would be like, but seein' you up there... all bloody... "

  He looked beyond the trees and saw the dark figure of the biker. The man was on his knees, his head bowed, his helmet under an arm. Then Hawkes searched for Mars, not knowing whether the planet was visible at the hour or not. He figured he'd try anyway. It felt right to do so.

  Tiny yet intense points of light glinted among the stars. There was no Mars, no moon, and no clouds, only the endless void that a hundred years prior would have been a valley, a beachhead, or coastal waters. To try to defend or conquer even a small portion of space seemed a great impossibility, a fool's errand.

  Who would you die for?

  McQueen's question was an icicle in his heart; it tormented him with chills and made him clench his teeth so hard that his head shook. "Aw, Pags, I wish I could know if anyone or anything is worth it."

  He rose, wiped his hand and rear free of dirt, then shuffled back to the fence and hopped it.

  "That's what it's all about," the biker said, swinging a leg over his ride. "Right back there. Ain't a lot of people walkin' around with as much honor or courage as they had."

  Hawkes delayed before getting on the bike. "Why'd you join the Army in the first place?"

  "Everybody jokes, says it seemed like a good idea at the time. Course they were drunk at the time. But as for me, it wasn't that I didn't have anything better to do or that I wanted to make a career of it, or that I had a choice between service or jail, but I kept watchin' the news and seein' people die and thought I had to do something about that. See, I didn't have to have a personal reason for doing what I did. I didn't have a brother or sister or folks who were killed. I think there just comes a time in every person's life when they gotta put somethin' else first. Making sacrifices ain't a pleasant business"—he inclined his head to the sky—"but without those people, shit... don't wanna think about that. Now, I'm ramblin'. Where you headed?"

  twenty

  "We haven't been here in a long time, Nathan,"

  John said, waving the flashlight around and shining it in Nathan's eyes. "And you still haven't told us why you wanted to come here in the first place."

  Neil added his voice to John's. "And why couldn't Shane come? I like her. She could've come."

  He waited until he was seated and resting his head against one of the tree-fort's walls before answering. "I don't think we should forget about this place."

  They looked at him, uncertain.

  "What I mean is," he quickly qualified, "we should talk about all the stuff we used to do."

  "Like when that blue jay built her nest above us and she kept swooping down and"—Neil looked at John—"you went to take a look at her eggs and got pecked right on the head."

  John scratched his pate, remembering the old war wound. "That wasn't as bad as the time you built that raft and nearly drowned."

  Nathan smiled over the memory of having to save his brother. Neil hadn't been in danger; he'd just failed to realize that all he had to do was stand. The water had been neck-deep. "You still owe me for that one," he reminded Neil.

  "You're only going to be here for a couple of days—" John began then b
roke off. "I wonder if they'd let your family come with you. I'll bet Dad would wanna go."

  Neil elbowed John, who winced. "You idiot. He's going into space, into battle. We can't go along." Then he foisted a pompous expression at John. "But in a year, I'll be old enough to enlist."

  "Unh-uh. Forget that," Nathan said sternly.

  "I heard Dad telling Mom they might draft me anyway." Neil said. "I might not even have to enlist. But don't they have a rule about sending brothers or something?"

  Nathan shrugged. "You guys know why I joined. I didn't want to become some big hero or anything. I just—"

  "We heard why," John said. "She's far away. But Shane's right here..."

  "She's a friend. That's all. She's got a whole world of her own problems. She doesn't need any of mine."

  "So, why are we up here, Nathan?" Neil's wide-eyed expression said that he hadn't accepted the vague answer Nathan had already given John, and was not about to play any more games.

  Nathan took in a long breath. "I wanted to talk to you guys. I guess I wanted to tell you that I'm going to miss you."

  "'Cause you might never see us again," Neil said softly. "And 'cause you might die."

  John snickered. "He ain't gonna die."

  "One of his friends already has," Neil spat back. "He might be next."

  "Neil's right, John. But I'm giving you my word that I'll try as hard as I can not to get killed."

  "You'd better," John warned. "'Cause I heard Mom telling somebody on the phone that Kylen's father was going crazy—and I don't want Dad going crazy. And I'll... miss you."

  "Nobody's going crazy and nobody's dead," Nathan corrected. "There's just a lot of waiting going on. And it's frustrating."

  "That's how we're going to feel when you leave," Neil said. "But maybe I'll join you soon. Those bastards won't have a chance against us."

  He wished there was something he could say to purge Neil of the desire to enlist. He hoped there was a rule about brothers that forbade the Corps from taking Neil. His mother might not survive the news that two of her three boys were in battle, and his father, well, Dad might wind up like Kylen's father after all.