by J. F. Holmes
They took him, blindfolded again and manacled, to an elevator, and he felt it rise for a very long time. When it stopped, and the door slid open, they guided his steps onto a carpeted floor, moving him forward down a hallway, and into another room. He was placed in a chair, but the blindfold wasn’t removed.
“General David Warren, Commander, Consolidated Earth Forces,” said the voice of Rachel Singh, “you have been charged under the Universal Code of Military Justice with the following,” and she made a simple statement, in a flat voice. “Article 85, Desertion, punishable by death.”
He waited for more, but no one said anything for a long while. When they didn’t, he said, “Is that it?”
“Isn’t it enough?” said an unseen man.
“You forgot ‘Calling your Chief names, Wishing to punch his pimply face, and Thinking you Sheriffs look like a lot of Tom-Fools’.”
Singh snickered quietly, but the man answered angrily, “What the hell are you talking about? You’re about to be shot!”
“It’s a quote from a very old book, Colonel Curtis. You should read it sometime. It’s about triumphing over darkness when all hope is lost,” said a woman, whose voice sounded scratchy and old. There was something hauntingly familiar to it, too, but Warren just couldn’t place it. Maybe one of his old instructors?
The prisoner cleared his throat and said, “If any of you were present at the Pentagon, as high ranking officers, you know I got the shaft. We couldn’t have won that fight, and I tried to extract what forces I could in the face of a disaster. My orders were countermanded and my ansible connection was cut. You know that, so either shoot me, or not. Please get this over with.”
There was a murmured debate that he couldn’t hear, and then the woman’s voice said, very clearly, “Please leave the room, everyone, except Colonel Singh.” With a scraping of chairs and a few murmured “Yes, Ma’am’s,” then the final closing of a door, the space fell quiet.
“Rachel, do you believe him?” asked the old woman.
After a moment’s hesitation that made his heart stand still, she answered, “Yes, Ma’am, I do.”
“I agree. Take off his blindfold.”
The light blinded him for a moment, and he tried to blink it away, attempting to raise his hands to his face, forgetting he was cuffed. Slowly his eyes adapted, and first he saw Singh sitting at a chair in front of him, her pistol laying on her lap.
Behind the Indian, rolling forward into the light, was a gray-haired woman, face horribly scarred and very thin, in a wheelchair. She had an IV drip running down to her arm, but there was still strength in the muscles that pushed the chair forward, and her sky-blue eyes were clear.
“It’s been a very long time, David,” she said.
Colonel Singh stood and unlocked his handcuffs as David Warren stared at the woman in front of him.
“B,b,but,” he stuttered, a habit he had overcome long ago, “you, you, you’re dead!”
“Not yet,” she answered, a bitter smile on her burned and withered face. “Soon, but not yet.”
Chapter 27
“Rachel, can you please give us a minute?” asked Warren.
“Of course,” she answered, and stepped out of the room.
Kira Arkady, former commander, CEF Fleet Carrier U.S.S. Lexington, said nothing, just looked at him. The boy she had loved when they were both teenagers had grown into a man, with some gray in his hair, and hard lines on his face. She liked what she saw, and wished the wish she had made so many times. In a different world…
In turn, he looked at her. Although, like him, she was only twenty-eight, her body looked ravaged, both with the scar tissue on her, and various blotches on her skin that he guessed were cancerous. Her hair was thin and white where it wasn’t gray, but beneath the lines was that smile that he had known so well. On the collar of her uniform glittered the five-star insignia of General in Command of Combined Earth Forces, the same insignia he had worn.
“Kira … I… I didn’t know. I would have found you, somehow.”
“If I had found you, I would have killed you, David. Right up until a few minutes ago, I still would have. You owe Rachel your life.”
He breathed out, then stood up, walked two steps and kneeled in front of her, taking her withered hand in his. “I did hesitate, because I loved you. But I knew, in the back of my mind, that there was no hope. I was trying to plan a way to extricate what was left, to save some strength, when you took that railgun hit. I thought you were gone, your ansible blinked out.”
She squeezed his hand with feeble strength, and said, “I hated you for eleven years, Dave. I thought you were a coward; I only knew what people had reported, what we picked up after the lifeboat got us down. Last month one of the teams found Vice Admiral Smithson, living down in Florida. I just got word from them earlier today, which is why I had you brought out of your cell.”
“Smithson, the J-2, intel officer?”
She nodded and said, “Yes. He verified everything that happened to you.”
“Did you bring him here to testify for me?” Warren hadn’t seen anyone else in the cells.
Again the bitter smile. “No, the Team Commander executed him. It’s the standing order when we find anyone above the rank of O-6 who was stationed at Cheyenne or the Pentagon.”
He started to say something, but realized that, really, he had no answer to that. Instead, he asked her how she had survived.
“Almost the entire crew managed to get off, after our fighters made a desperation run at the Invy battleship that was targeting us. It held off their main gun fire long enough for me to launch lifeboats. And say goodbye to the Lady. Last I saw her, she was going ballistic towards deep space.”
He reached up and touched the scars on her face, then kissed her gently. “I have missed you every day, beautiful girl.”
Bitter tears ran down her face, and she said, “Not so beautiful now. I ... I’m dying, David. I took a really heavy dose of radiation when we got holed. The docs gave me six months to live more than a year ago.”
Anger welled up in him. Anger at the Invy, at the fools who thought that they could win a war on the Invy’s turf, and mostly at himself. She saw the look on his face, and understood the emotions he was feeling. She had let her own hatred keep her alive for these long years; hatred of the aliens, hatred of him.
“I let you down, Kira. I let everyone down,” he whispered, eyes closed. “I should have tried harder…”
“You’re goddamned right you should have, you son of a bitch!” exclaimed a voice from the doorway, and Warren turned to face the man in the doorway, with the voice of the officer he had heard earlier. He stood there with an old M-9 Beretta held on both of them, and behind were several others, all heavily armed.
General Arkady looked at Colonel Curtis, and said to him, in a quiet, steady voice, “You saw the testimony of Vice Admiral Smithson, Mike.”
“I did, and it’s bullshit. More ass covering for you political officers. People say anything when they’re facing the gun. You probably had one of Singh’s scouts read him a script, to protect your boyfriend. I’m sure she’ll confess to that, eventually.” He stepped aside to reveal the Scout Regiment Commander, duct-taped and zip-tied, standing behind him.
Warren felt the implant in his mind immediately calculate the odds of reaching and engaging the man. He didn’t need augmentation to know that it would be useless. He may be able to THINK faster, but it didn’t do squat for his reflexes.
“So, what now, Colonel? Is this a coup?” asked Kira, gently. “Is this what it’s come down to?”
“General, everyone knows the stress you’ve been under, planning Red Dawn, and how sick you are. You need to step aside and let someone else handle this.”
“I am,” she answered. “General Warren will be taking over for me.”
“No,” retorted Curtis, “he’s going to be tried and shot.”
“By whom? You? I doubt General McCauley will be OK with that.”
; At the mention of the Raven Rock base commander, Curtis sneered. “She wasn’t.”
“Since you’re standing here, I assume she’s dead.”
He didn’t answer, just motioned with the pistol, starting to wave the three men behind him forward. With a shock, Warren saw that they all wore green armbands, including Curtis.
“You know the Greens aren’t organized,” said the Colonel, “and don’t even know we’re still around. It was quite a shock to Drummond here to find out that the CEF existed. There’s a man, one of the Greens, who suspected, and he’s been trying to create an organization of people who will work with the Invy, help restore the planet. Drummond was sent to find out whatever he could about us. It was pure luck that that dipshit Agostine admitted the kid to his team.”
“Not pure luck, really,” said Arkady. “We’ve been tracking Carlyle for a long time.” What she said, though, didn’t seem to register with Curtis, who was full of adrenaline from the success of his plan.
Warren felt all the blood leave his head, and the world swam around him. “D-d-d-d-d… DO THE INVY KNOW?” he managed to blurt out.
“No, not yet. There’s only a loose network of Greens, and the one man who suspects. He isn’t going to go to them until he has proof.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?” asked Arkady, simply.
“Because I’m going to work out a treaty with the Invy. And your plan isn’t going to work, except to get us all killed.”
“Listen, Colonel,” said Warren, “you CAN’T negotiate with the Invy. If you do this, there is NO hope, do you understand me?”
He turned to the young man standing next to Curtis. “Drummond, you have been outside. You know what I’m saying is true!”
“General, what I know is that the Invy are here to fix what the old civilization screwed up. It’s going to take sacrifice, and generations of work, but from what I’ve heard of Red Dawn, you’re going to screw everything up again. Colonel Curtis and Mister Carlyle will come to an accommodation, and the Invy will listen to us.”
“Enough of this bullshit. Warren, come along quietly, so I can shoot you out of sight of your friends. Let Kira live out the rest of her time in peace,” said Curtis. Two of the men, both wearing Major rank, stepped forward towards him.
Chapter 28
Two shots rang out, muzzle flashes sparking from the back of the room, and the Majors sprawled on the floor bonelessly, neat entrance holes in their faces, and craters in the back of their heads. Curtis stood, stunned, covered in bone and blood fragments.
“Thank you, Master Sergeant Agostine,” said General Arkady.
“Anytime, Ma’am,” came the disembodied voice from the far side of the room.
“Please disarm Colonel Curtis, please, Sergeant Jones. Drummond, drop the weapon.”
There was a grunt from Curtis, and his arm, with the pistol in it, was twisted downward, and everyone could hear the bones crushing in his hand. He tried to stifle a grunt of pain, and fought it for a second, but a decade of living underground and working on staff was no match for the seasoned Scout. The pistol started to fall, but another invisible hand caught it.
Drummond stood there, completely undecided. When he had been growing up in Scranton, he used to regularly sneak into the Invy town and, hungry for education, listen to their lectures. Getting as high as he could into the CEF had been his own plan, once he knew they existed, and he had been out of touch with Carlyle since he joined his Main Force unit. The idea of an alliance with the Green leader had just come to him earlier that day, when he saw how bitter Curtis was. He had planned just to take information back to Scranton, tell the Greens all about the CEF, but a casual reference and a conversation with Sergeant Bassily in Operations had led to Curtis approaching him that morning.
Now, in front of him stood the CEF leadership, and he remembered what Carlyle had said when he started his infiltration. “If not, then strike when the opportunity arises.” Drummond knew he was dead anyway, so he raised his pistol to shoot. Two bullets struck him almost in unison, punching his body against the wall. He struggled to draw breath for a moment, wheezing, then slumped over sideways, eyes still open but still.
Hoods were removed to reveal Agostine, Jones and Reynolds, disembodied heads floating eerily in the cool air. One at a time, they striped off the rest of the camo, and stepped into the light. Jones was last; he spent some time hog-tying Curtis and then freed Singh.
“You took your time, Nick,” said his commander.
“That,” answered Arkady, “was my call. We could not move against them until they openly revealed themselves. I regret General McCauley’s death, but I assume Captain Padilla is taking care of the rest of them?”
Singh nodded, then motioned to Curtis. “What do you want to do with him?”
Arkady stayed silent for a moment, then said, “Rachel, please help me,” tugging at her collar. The scout leader came over and helped her take off the five-star rank.
“Dave, I think these are yours,” she said, handing them to the stunned Warren.
He stared at the glittering rank as they lay in his hand, then clenched his fist on them so hard that his knuckles turned white and the pins punctured his skin. Blood started to drip on the immaculate white tile floor, splattering drops of vermillion red to match the cooling corpses. Then he opened his hand and let them drop.
“No.”
His refusal echoed around the chamber. Arkady looked shocked; Singh’s face held no expression, nor did any of the other scouts.
“I knew it!” sneered Curtis from where he stood, hands cuffed behind him, “A goddamned coward!”
Master Sergeant Agostine shot him in the head, and the body sagged in Jones’s grip.
“Damn, Nick. It’s gettin like Chicago up in here!” he said, dropping the corpse. He brushed at the splatter on his camo, cursing under his breath.
“Can we move this someplace else?” asked Singh, and took Warren by the arm. “Come with me, Sir.”
“Don’t call me that,” he answered back, but allowed himself to be herded out of the room, pushing Arkady’s wheelchair.
That left Agostine, Jones and Reynolds standing with the dead. “I guess it’s just enlisted doing the dirty work.”
“Can I get a cleanup on aisle five?” said Jones.
Reynolds laughed, but Agostine turned away, looking down at the dead bodies. No laugh, not even a smile. His face set in a grim rictus, and he put his weapon on safe, walking out of the room. “What a fucking waste,” he said, looking at Drummond’s lifeless eyes, and kicked hard at Curtis’ body as he passed.
“Whoops!” said Jones, and he bent down to grab Drummond by the ankles. The teen had a surprised look on his face, and as Jones pulled, the body left a streak of blood across the floor. He dragged the remains over to the other dead men, even as Reynolds pulled one of the Majors over too.
“What the hell was that about?” she asked.
“Nick’s been at this since way before the war. He did two tours in Syria, fought in the Spratly War, was a POW in China, all before he was twenty-five. Then the Invy came, and shit, dude’s pushing forty now. He’s been at this scoutin’ stuff for almost two decades, and I guess it’s gettin to him, you know? Plus he’s all wrapped up in Brit, and his head ain’t in the game.”
“Damn,” she said, grunting as she tried to pull Curtis over. He had been a big man, and his bowels had let go when he died, making the place smell even worse than the coppery tang of blood. Jones came over and helped her, and they piled all four bodies in the center of the room. At the door, two privates showed, manhandling a cart. Another followed, pushing a mop bucket and wiping up the tracks the wheelchair had made through the blood.
“Have at it, suckers!” said Jones. “Be all you can be and all that shit! We gotta go back out to the glorious sunshine, get outta this bat cave.” He and Reynolds walked out past the younger soldiers, giving them each a salute.
“Man, they get to shoot the shit out of these officers, a
nd we gotta clean up after them,” said one private.
“Yeah, but we can take a hot shower whenever we want. Remember being out in the ruins?”
“Amen to that, brother. And regular food, too.”
The grass is always greener.
Chapter 28
“Someplace else” turned out to be a command and control center, down two levels. There were numerous officers who rose to their feet and stood at attention when Arkady was wheeled into the room. Foremost among them was Captain Padilla, who had a splash of blood across the front of his uniform.
“Ma’am;” he said, stepping forward. “You took a very big chance letting that kid get close to you.”
“War is chance, Jesse,” she answered. “All the best laid plans of mice and men go out the window, but we do what we can. It worked out well, though I didn’t think they would go after General McCauley first.”
She rolled forward, and Warren was conscious of all the eyes on him. Assembled in front of them was, he assumed, the Command Staff of the Combined Earth Forces. Some faces he knew, but he was shocked at how old they had grown. His implant sometimes listed the bio, a decade out of date, of certain people as he glanced at them, but he ignored it.
With a feeble wave of her hand, Arkady motioned for him to stop pushing the chair, and they came to rest at the center of the room. Singh stepped away, leaving the two facing the several dozen people. “At ease, everyone,” said Arkady.
“Kira, I don’t want this!” Warren muttered to her.
She looked over her shoulder at him, and in her smile, he saw the ghost of the girl he girl he once loved, who was made of harder steel than he was. “I don’t care what you want, Dave. It’s what you’re going to do.”
Turning back to the staff, she motioned again, and various screens and monitors lit up, showing views from all around the interior of the giant base. In each, there was gathered a crowd of people, wearing various uniforms, looking back expectantly.
“CEF soldiers,” began Arkady in a wavery voice, but then she stopped. When she continued, strength had come back to her, but Warren wondered what the effort was costing her.