War Stories

by Andrew Liptak

  “So what’s next?” Murph asked, hoping to get to the point.

  “Well, we think something got transferred off the Sunseeker. Jettisoned, really. A little trajectory analysis turned up an unregistered frigate in the right area at the right time, and when our boys tracked its current course, they uncovered something interesting.”

  Vega paused with a little half–smile, waiting for someone to be impressed. She was way too proud of the eggheads.

  “Sooooo,” Murph said. “What’s next?”

  Vega’s half–smile deflated. “There’s an unknown vessel keeping station awfully close to an asteroid about forty megs out from the Sunseeker’s previous position. Its signature reads like a Victor–class ship, but heavily modified; looks like they’re trying not to be noticed.” A meg was Navy–speak for a thousand kilometers, which put the target ship at the kind of distance that was so big as to be almost meaningless to Murph. For all the time he spent in space, he was a boots–on–the–ground kind of guy at heart.

  “Lunar?” Vance asked. Vega nodded. Vance held a hand up and rubbed her fingertips together like somebody needed to pay up.

  “We don’t know what its capabilities are,” Vega continued, “or what it might do if we tried to intercept. And we don’t want to provoke a response of any kind until we know who and what we’re dealing with.”

  “You want us to hit an unknown vessel that’s kinda maybe Victor–class, sort of?” Murph asked.

  “Not hit,” Vega said. “Just recon.”

  Murph’s team waited in silence, knowing there was more.

  “And if possible, prep the craft for a hit,” she added.

  “There it is,” Kit said.

  “I know it sounds risky, but Higher’s already run the scenario and drawn up a plan of action—”

  “Whoa, hold up now,” Murph said, interrupting, but Vega held up a hand and stopped him.

  “Before you unload, let me just run you through it.”

  It didn’t take long for the briefing to turn into a grind session. They went through every detail from top to bottom and back again, asking questions, assessing risks, challenging assumptions, stripping out all the unnecessary bits that some good idea fairy had sprinkled throughout the whole thing.

  Murph kept finding his gaze drawn to Switch, enough times that it started to bother him. He kept telling himself he was totally focused on the mission, and then the next thing he knew, he’d be looking over at her, and he couldn’t figure out why.

  Finally, it clicked. She had a little notch in her left ear where one night a combination of beer and friendly combatives had led to a hard fall against a table and had taken a chunk out of the lobe. At least, there used to be a notch there. Now that ear was whole, undamaged. Murph had never really thought much of it before, but now he found himself missing it. In giving her life, they’d taken her scars.

  He shook his head and refocused his mind on the task at hand.

  §

  Ten hours later, they were suited up and packed tightly into their narrow, low–signature delivery vehicle, the Lamprey, which they all affectionately called “the coffin.”

  Murph found himself unusually distracted. He tried to tell himself it was just the long ride, or the lack of rest between operations, or the near insanity of infiltrating a virtually unknown ship. Eventually he had to admit what was really going on. Switch’s death had shaken him, and all the thoughts and emotions around it refused to be ignored.

  It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d lost a teammate. He’d even been through the Process twice himself. But he had a box for that, inside. For all those things. He had a box in his heart where he kept the pain, and the loss, and the terrible things he’d seen. One day, when he’d served his time and done his duty, he planned to open that box and sort through it, and to give each memory its due. But for now it had to stay closed, and it had to stay separate. That’s how it’d always been, and how it had to be.

  But no matter how hard he tried to keep that box closed, the thoughts kept leaking out.

  He’d been through the Process. He was fine. Switch was fine.

  But was he really the same person? The body was identical, but it wasn’t really the same. And the mind. The memories, the habits, the quirks, they were all there. But to some degree, they were just copies of something that had once been original. Backups. Did it really matter whether he was the same, or just something so like the same as to be impossible to distinguish?

  Murph bit down on the mouthpiece of his helmet and sucked cool water, hoping to calm his racing mind.

  It’d been so arbitrary: a glitch in a supposedly perfect system, her faceplate open, the timing of the explosion. How many little things had gone wrong to lead to that little perfect hole in her face? That was the hardest part, knowing that no amount of training or preparation could ever shield his team from the random events of the universe.

  It almost didn’t matter what the mission was anymore; they’d trained for and executed so many. Hostage rescue. Recon. Ship takedown. Each was just a link in a chain that led to another. Murph just had to trust each was as important as they said, and that the whole thing had an end somewhere, some day. Mission after mission, he and his team got the job done, because that’s what they did, and not even death could keep them from the next one. And the next one. Still, all that training, all that experience, they still couldn’t escape simple bad luck.

  When he’d made the unit, they’d told him he’d never have to fear death again. That he’d never have to worry about losing a brother. That they were invincible.

  But they were wrong. It wasn’t that your brother never died. It was that he died a hundred times. A thousand times. And every time you couldn’t save him… well, for all Murph had suffered in his service, he’d not yet found a pain as deep as the one that came from having failed someone so completely.

  He looked over at Switch then, her shoulder three inches from his. Seeing the movement, she turned her head slightly towards him. He just reached up and tapped his own faceplate three times. She nodded. He couldn’t see the smile, but he imagined one there. And he remembered the hole in her cheek, and the way her eyes had dulled.

  He turned back and closed his eyes, took another sip of water. New body, new brain. Same soul. The eggheads still hadn’t figured out how to fix the scars on that one. There were more ways to break than science had found ways to fix, and that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. For just a minute, Murph gave himself permission to feel the fear, the sadness, the anger. Just for a minute. And then, he packed it all back into his box, and locked it with a final thought.

  Invincible, he thought. Well, that may be. But we sure as hell aren’t invulnerable.

  Light and Shadow

  Linda Nagata

  LIEUTENANT DANI REID WAS SERVING her turn on watch inside Fort Zana’s Tactical Operations Center. She scanned the TOC’s monitors and their rotating displays of real–time surveillance data. All was quiet. Even the goats that usually grazed outside the walls had retreated, taking refuge from the noon sun in a grove of spindly thorn trees.

  The temperature outside was a steamy 39°C, but within the fort’s prefabricated, insulated walls, the air was cool enough that Reid kept the jacket of her brown–camo combat uniform buttoned up per regulation. The skullcap she wore was part of the uniform. Made like an athletic skullcap, it covered her forehead and clung skin–tight against her hairless scalp. Fine wires woven through its silky brown fabric were in constant dialog with the workings of her mind.

  On watch, the skullcap kept her alert, just slightly on edge, immune to the mesmerizing hum of electronics and the soothing whisper of air circulating through the vents—white noise that retreated into subliminal volumes when confronted by a louder sound: a rustle of movement in the hallway.

  Private First Class Landon Phan leaned in the doorway of the TOC.

  Phan was just twenty–one, slender and wiry. Beneath the brim of his skullcap, his eyebrows angl
ed in an annoyed scowl. “L.T.? You should go check on Sakai.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “Ma’am, you need to see it yourself.”

  Phan had been part of Reid’s linked combat squad for nine months. He’d done well in the LCS; he’d earned Reid’s trust. She didn’t feel the same about Sakai.

  “Okay. You take the watch.”

  Light spilling from the TOC was the only illumination in the hallway. The bunkroom was even darker. Reid couldn’t see anything inside, but she could hear the fast, shallow, ragged breathing of a soldier in trouble, skirting the edge of panic. She slapped on the hall light.

  Specialist Caroline Sakai was revealed, coiled in a bottom bunk, her trembling fists clenched against her chin, her eyes squeezed shut. She wore a T–shirt, shorts, and socks, but she wasn’t wearing a skullcap. The pale skin of her hairless scalp gleamed in the refracted light.

  “What the hell?” Reid whispered, crossing the room to crouch beside the bunk. “Sakai? What happened?”

  Sakai’s eyes popped open. She jerked back against the wall, glaring as if she’d never seen Reid before.

  “What the hell?” Reid repeated.

  Sakai’s gaze cut sideways. She bit her lip. Then, in an uncharacteristically husky voice, she confessed, “I think… I was having a nightmare.”

  “No shit! What did you expect?”

  She seemed honestly confused. “Ma’am?”

  “Where the hell is your skullcap?”

  Sakai caught on; her expression hardened. “In my locker, ma’am.”

  The microwire net in Reid’s skullcap detected her consternation and responded to it by signaling the tiny beads strewn throughout her brain tissue to stimulate a counteracting cerebral cocktail that helped her think calmly, logically, as this conversation veered into dangerous territory.

  The skullcap was standard equipment in a linked combat squad. It guarded and guided a soldier’s emotional state, keeping moods balanced and minds honed. It was so essential to the job that, on deployment, LCS soldiers were allowed to wear it at all times, waking or sleeping. And they did wear it. All of them did. Always.

  But they were not required to wear it, not during off–duty hours.

  The hallway light picked out a few pale freckles on Sakai’s cheeks and the multiple, empty piercings in her earlobes. It tangled in her black, unkempt eyebrows and glinted in her glassy brown eyes. “You want the nightmares?” Reid asked, revolted by Sakai’s choice.

  “Of course not, ma’am.”

  Use of the skullcap was tangled up in issues of mental health and self–determination, so regulations existed to protect a soldier’s right of choice. Reid could not order Sakai to wear it when she was off–duty; she could not even ask Sakai why she chose to go without it. So she approached the issue sideways. “Something you need to talk about, soldier?”

  “No, ma’am,” Sakai said in a flat voice. “I’m fine.”

  Reid nodded, because there was nothing else she could do. “Get some sleep, then. Nightmares aren’t going to excuse you from patrol.”

  She returned to the TOC, where Phan was waiting. “When did this start?”

  “Yesterday,” he answered cautiously.

  Even Phan knew this wasn’t a subject they could discuss.

  “Get some sleep,” she told him. “Use earplugs if you have to.”

  When he’d gone, Reid considered reporting the issue to Guidance… but she knew what Guidance would say. So long as Sakai performed her duties in an acceptable manner, she was within her rights to forego the skullcap during off–duty hours, no matter how much it disturbed the rest of the squad.

  §

  What the hell was Sakai trying to prove?

  Reid ran her palms across the silky fabric of her skullcap. Then, as if on a dare, she slipped her fingertips under its brim and took it off.

  A cold draft kissed her bare scalp and made her shiver.

  Her pulse picked up as fear unfolded around her heart.

  You’re psyching yourself out.

  Probably.

  She studied the skullcap, turning it over, feeling the hair–thin microwires embedded in the smooth brown cloth.

  No big deal, really, to go without it. It was only out of habit that she wore it all the time.

  The hum of electronics within the TOC grew a little louder, a little closer, and then, with no further warning, Reid found herself caught up in a quiet fury. Sakai had always been the squad’s problem child. Not in the performance of her duty—if that had been an issue, Reid would have been all over her. It was Sakai’s personality. She didn’t mesh. Distant, uncommunicative, her emotions locked away. A loner. Seven months at Fort Zana had not changed her status as an outsider.

  Reid’s emotions were closer to the surface: she didn’t like Sakai; didn’t like her effect on the squad. There needed to be trust between her soldiers, but none of them really trusted Sakai and no one wanted to partner with her. No one believed she would truly have their back if things went hard south. Reid saw it in the field when her soldiers hesitated, thought twice, allowed a few seconds to pass in doubt. Someday those few seconds would be the last measure of a life.

  Reid clenched the skullcap.

  Fuck Sakai anyway.

  Ducking her head, she slipped the cap back on, pressing it close to her scalp. Within seconds, her racing heart slowed. Her anger grew cold and thoughtful.

  Sakai thought she could get by without her skullcap. Maybe she wanted to prove she had more mettle than the rest of them, but it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. “You’ll give it up,” Reid whispered. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be back in the fold.”

  §

  Reid finished her watch and went back to sleep, waking at 1900. She laced on her boots, then tromped next door to the TOC, where Private First Class David Wicks was on duty.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am. No alerts at all from Command.” He flashed a shy smile. “But my niece had her first–birthday party today.” He pulled up a window with his email, and Reid got to watch a short video of a smiling one–year–old in a pretty blue dress.

  “Your sister doing okay now?”

  “Yeah, she’s good.”

  Wicks sent money to his sister. It was a big part of why he’d signed up.

  In the kitchen, Reid microwaved a meal, then joined Sergeant Juarez at the table. “Command thinks we’ve got a quiet night.”

  Juarez was no taller than Reid, but he carried fifty extra pounds of muscle. He’d been Army for seven years, and Reid was sure he’d be in for twenty if he could pull it off. “You ever notice,” he drawled, “how the patrol gets interesting every time Command says there’s nothing going on?”

  “Just means we’re good at finding trouble.”

  Phan reeled in, with Private First Class Mila Faraci a step behind him. “How’s it look tonight, L.T.?” Faraci asked.

  “Quiet so far.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Juarez finished eating. He got up just as Sakai came in the door wearing a fresh uniform, her cheeks still flushed from a hot shower and her head freshly denuded of hair, leaving her scalp smooth and pale under the ceiling lights with no skullcap to hide it. Phan and Faraci were waiting together by the two humming microwaves. Phan glared. Faraci looked shocked. “I thought you were shitting me,” she murmured.

  Sakai ignored everyone. She opened the freezer and pulled out a meal packet while Reid traded a look with Juarez.

  “What the hell is with you, Sakai?” Faraci demanded.

  “Faraci,” Juarez growled, “you got a problem?”

  Faraci was strong, tall, tough, and full of swagger, but she took care never to cross Juarez. “No, Sergeant.”

  Reid got up, dumped her meal packet, and left. Juarez followed her to her quarters, where there was barely enough room for the two of them to stand without breathing each other’s air.

  “What the hell?” he demanded.

 
; “You know I can’t ask. She hasn’t said anything to you?”

  “She doesn’t talk to me or anybody. It’s been worse since she got back from leave.”

  Skullcaps got turned in before a soldier went on leave. It was a harsh transition, learning to live without it. But taking it up again after your twenty–one days—that was easy. No one ever had a problem with that.

  “She’s just annoyed at being back,” Reid decided. “If there was a real issue, Guidance would know. They would address it. Meantime, make sure our other noble warriors don’t get in her face. I don’t want to bust the kids when Sakai is the loose cannon.”

  “You got it, L.T.”

  “This won’t last,” Reid assured him. “You’ll see. She’ll give this up tomorrow.”

  §

  Reid was wrong.

  Sakai wore the skullcap during the nightly patrols as she was required to do, but for three days running she took the cap off as soon as she hit the showers, and it didn’t go on again until they rigged up for the next patrol. This generated its own problem: Sakai couldn’t sleep well without her skullcap. It wouldn’t be long before she was unfit for patrol.

  §

  Reid rigged up early for the night’s adventures. Her armored vest went on first. Then she strapped into her “dead sister.” The titanium exoskeleton was made of bone–like struts that paralleled her arms and legs and were linked together by a back frame that supported the weight of her pack. Testing the rig, she crouched and then bobbed up, letting the dead sister’s powered leg struts do the work of lifting her body weight. The exoskeleton made it easy to walk for hours, to run, to jump, to kick and hit, and to support the weight of her tactical rifle, an MCL1a with muzzle–mounted cams and AI integration.