Message for the Dead

by Jason Anspach

  “But back to Gallobren. As a core world, it has a non-existent military presence, and for now, the prison is guarded only by planetary militia. That said, I’m sitting on orders to resupply, reinforce, and transfer soldiers loyal to the House of Reason to fortify the site. I’m doing my best to confound the process—which, given the chaos caused by Article Nineteen, isn’t that difficult. But I cannot keep the new POW camp relatively unprotected for long without raising suspicion about my personal loyalties. I anticipate two standard weeks at best before the planned garrison of five thousand legionnaires, soldiers, and marines—all unquestionably loyal to the House of Reason—arrive. After that, any op designed to liberate the facility will get much harder.

  “In addition to this, Delegate Nimh Arushi is personally overseeing the project. She’ll be close to the city. Nabbing her would help move Article Nineteen along, and that is, after all, why I’ve been enduring all these years on Utopion. I recognize that Arushi is only one delegate, but she’s a particularly powerful one, and putting her on trial, forcing a new election as the Article requires… it would send a needed message to the House. It would put them on notice. And it might allow us to peel loose some of the more moderate elements.”

  Chhun clenched his jaw. He believed what this man was telling him, and he hated the House of Reason for it. But was it really true? Or was he being played?

  “Speaking of which…” Washam looked from his left to his right, as though verifying that he was still alone. “You’ll have seen by now the holonews stating that some of the delegates and their families were killed by the Legion during the raids. Don’t believe it. These were the reformers, and the rest of the House used the raids as an excuse to execute them.”

  Again, Chhun questioned what he was hearing. The hand-picked Legion commander, chosen by the House of Reason to replace Keller was… a spy?

  Washam continued as if reading Chhun’s mind. “The thought occurs to me that whoever is on the other end of this comm channel may not even known what I am. It’s been so long, it’s a wonder I didn’t forget myself. But my purpose, from almost the beginning, was to be an appointed officer who would do the right thing. To make myself an asset to the Legion—the real Legion—should I be needed. Colonel Logarus was running Dark Ops the last time I checked in.”

  Chhun looked to the first sergeant.

  “I was still a buck private when Logarus retired,” VanBuskirk replied.

  Washam let out a long sigh. “I’m doing what I can, but that is far less than I’d like. It is my recommendation that a kill team be sent in to disrupt the progress of this black site facility by organizing an armed uprising among the prisoners that will result in the liberation of the legionnaires on site. I cannot say with any certainty when or if I can communicate again. Stop Herbeer from happening again, and KTF. End transmission.”

  The holoscreen went dark.

  “Can you verify any of this?” the comm officer asked Chhun.

  Chhun shook his head. Washam was a point—one of the first, actually—and anyone who had followed the tug-of-war that regularly occurred between the Legion commander and the House of Reason, along with its cabal of appointed officers, knew that Washam was the man who’d used his service record in Psydon to counter almost every request the Legion brought. The House loved him, and the Legion despised him. Yet here he was providing intel to the “rogue” Legion in direct opposition to the wishes of the House. It wasn’t just out of character; it bordered on insane.

  Chhun turned to the first sergeant. “Request Admiral Deynolds meet me in my office as soon as possible.”

  ***

  Chhun examined the walls in his office. They didn’t do anything to make him feel at home; in fact, they had the opposite effect. Major Owens had boxed up his personal items, but the holo-images were still hung up. Chhun studied one particular moment in time: Owens and his wife and children all smiling, sitting in the sunshine, picnicking outdoors. He liked that picture. Might even be sad to see it go.

  The office door chimed.

  “Come,” said Chhun, rising to his feet as the door swooshed open to reveal Admiral Deynolds.

  The admiral stepped inside, cap in hand. “Captain Chhun,” she said.

  “Admiral,” answered Chhun, gesturing for her to take a seat.

  She obliged, crossing her legs and looking around at the same holo-images that had drawn Chhun’s attention. “It’s a good thing you were here,” she said, “or I would have thought this office belonged to someone else.”

  Chhun smiled. “I’m good at shooting bad guys. Interior decoration… not so much.” He paused. “Truth be told, I don’t want to seem overly eager to replace the man who’s more or less a legend in Dark Ops.”

  Deynolds gave a warm smile. “You’re finally moving up in the Legion, Cohen. Trust me when I say that I’m not the only one who wondered why it was taking so long.”

  “Same goes for you… Admiral.”

  Deynolds settled in for business. “I could tell from the urgency in your aide’s voice that this wasn’t a social call,” she said. “What can Intrepid do for Dark Ops?”

  Chhun activated a holo display on the surface of his desk. It was queued at the start of Washam’s message, the recording paused to show the concern etched on the man’s face. “Are you familiar with the House of Reason’s new Legion commander?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Deynolds craned her neck to get a better view of the display. “I’ve never met him, but it didn’t come as a surprise when he was chosen after Article Nineteen was rejected. An appointed officer. One of the first in the Legion… probably not a first choice, though.”

  Chhun agreed with that. Had Admiral Devers survived Tarrago, Chhun had no doubt that he would be whipping the galaxy into a frenzy against the Legion. He would have been the obvious choice for a new Legion commander. “As best I can tell, Washam didn’t have the respect of someone like Silas Devers—”

  Deynolds scoffed at the mention of the name.

  “But since he’s dead…” Chhun paused, leaving that rungrunk trail left unexplored. “Admiral, you were one of the few people in the confidence of Major Owens and Legion Commander Keller. You knew about Captain Ford and Righteous Destiny. Did Major Owens ever mention Washam to you?”

  “Not that I recall. Maybe in passing. Political talk, things like that. Why?”

  Chhun frowned. He had hoped Deynolds knew something about Washam he did not. “I’m going to play you a message that came from Washam via a dead-drop comm. No one here can verify it.”

  Chhun watched Deynolds’s face as the recording played.

  When it was complete, Deynolds looked up in alarm. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

  Holding out open palms, Chhun said, “I have no idea. I’ve been looking over files, cross-searching DO intel… I don’t see any record of Washam being a Dark Ops asset. I’ve tried to reach the Legion commander or Major Owens, but they’re completely off-grid with whatever they’re up to.”

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  “No. Only you, my aide, and the comm officer who first received the message know.”

  “Good. Something like this… well, quite frankly it’s not the sort of thing you want getting around. Even among the Legion.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Chhun. “Someone already tipped Utopion to Article Nineteen.”

  “Precisely.” Deynolds gave a fractional nod. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of help in verifying the message. Is there anything else you need?”

  Chhun sighed, unsure how to frame what he was about to request. “I need to know whether Intrepid would be able to facilitate a mission, should this be validated. The opportunity to bring back our guys is so tempting… well, if I were to set up a trap, that would be my angle. On the other hand, if it’s true, of course we’re going after them. Add in the potential to grab a high-ranking delegate like Nimh Arushi… and we need to be able to strike.”

  “I can go where I want to,” Deynolds said. “
Within reason, of course. We’re to operate through the mid-core, but Gallobren is certainly an option if we have a good reason. This would be that, if confirmed.”

  “Thank you,” Chhun said, nodding gratefully. “I want to do some more digging, but if this is what it seems like, I think it’s worth the risk.”

  Deynolds stood. “I agree. Say the word and we’ll make it happen.”

  Chhun rose and moved with the admiral to the door. “Thank you, Admiral. I can’t think of a better ship to do what needs doing than Intrepid. You’ve been a friend to Dark Ops since I first joined.”

  Deynolds smiled. “Thank you, Captain. I appreciate that, greatly. It’s always a pleasure working with you leejes.”

  Chhun gave a nod. “KTF.”

  ***

  A new round of incoming transfer logs, performance reviews, inventory requests, and other must-read data files flooded Chhun’s inbox. When he was a team leader, he never gave much thought to these after he’d sent them; they were just part of the required work that filled the hours between ops. But now that his own team leaders were sending them to him, he developed a whole new appreciation for Major Owens.

  It wasn’t just reports the team leaders were sending, either. They were all itching for a fight. Virtually all of them had sent private messages to Chhun to make sure he knew they were ready to roll. But for now, training exercises—inside a special hangar Intrepid had dedicated for their use—would be the closest they’d get.

  Speaking of which… Bear’s latest training scores needed to be processed.

  Chhun opened the file and perused it. Bear was already getting good results as the new team leader. Not that Kill Team Outlaw was substandard before, but with Bear’s leadership and Masters’s physical work ethic, their training scores and times were improving to the point where Outlaw was on the verge of being the top kill team on board the ship.

  Chhun was supposed to file this report and package it for a couple of other destinations, but he found himself consistently pulled away from this, and his other bureaucratic obligations, in lieu of searching for data on the Legion’s campaign on Psydon. Washam’s message had made it clear that there was a ticking clock. But before he would authorize a mission, Chhun needed to be sure that his first action in his new role within Dark Ops would not result in five kill teams being ambushed and destroyed.

  The cobwebbed corners of the holonet were a place to get lost. An area rife with things that could never be unseen. But also a place where a surprising amount of useful, actionable information slumbered, just waiting to be found. Chhun had been seeking anything that might make his decision on the Washam op easier. But with an archive thousands of years old and spanning planet after planet, even a simple text-string search brought up more information than he could possibly filter through.

  Ostensibly, this was why research bots and Dark Ops AI search-aids existed. Chhun could very specifically ask them what he wanted to know about Washam, then see what the public holonet plus a host of other classified databases might turn up. But he had taken to heart Admiral Deynolds’s advice not to tell anyone. The Dark Ops network and the machines that operated within it were supposed to be slice-proof and invisible to the Republic. But after spending time with Keel and seeing what his code-slicer wonder kid could do, Chhun knew that all those assurances of security were about as solid as the gas expended to utter them. Anyone who thought otherwise was fooling himself.

  So Chhun managed the search personally, and focused his investigation on areas of interest that would appear benign to any prying eyes. He hoped that he would come across something, anything, that would give him the nudge to decide between go and no-go.

  History was the easiest route. Washam had started his career as an appointed officer on the Psydon campaign—the first major battle to see points in action—so Chhun had been reading forums, watching vlog posts and documentaries of old Psydon vets, and skimming memoirs to the point where he wondered if he was even doing his job any longer or just getting lost in the glory of those leejes who’d come before him.

  Today he was searching for out-of-circulation books about Psydon. There had been a fair amount of them written after the battle had run its course, as the generation of legionnaires who had fought there tried to make sense of the fierce battles, the loss of their friends, and what it all meant to the rest of their lives.

  These were the books no one read anymore. Because they weren’t about right now, and that somehow made them seem unimportant. They were still out there, of course—because nothing ever really went away anymore. Data was cheap, and storage cheaper. But some titles tended to fade, while others solidified their position as authoritative accounts.

  Chhun’s first data point of interest came from one of the lesser-known titles—a combat memoir titled, Overrun: A Marine’s Story of the War on Psydon.

  The book was a typical example of the genre. The author began with an account of his childhood, then took the reader through Republic marine training, which was hardly Legion training but was still a significant trial. Chhun skimming the pages, swiping his datapad relentlessly. And then he got his first glimpse of something that made him sit up a little straighter in his chair. The narrative made reference to the House of Reason and the role their appointed officers had in the battle. Every account Chhun had read said that the first batch of points were just as bad as the ones who served before Article Nineteen kicked them out. That they were lousy from the get-go.

  But then he saw the name Washam.

  Excited, he highlighted a crucial passage:

  Unlike the other points, this guy seemed to actually give a damn about the leejes he worked with. There were rumors that he went a long ways up planet with some other legionnaires to do something that needed doing. I was in camp when he came back, with a lot fewer men than he’d set out with, but I’ll tell you, the regular leejes, they treated him differently than the other points after that. They respected him. And when a CO sought to punish Washam and the other survivors upon returning—AWOL was the charge—the rest of the leejes made it real clear that if the CO didn’t drop it, they would drop him. That’s how it was back then.

  Realizing that he was on his feet, Chhun dropped back down into his chair and gently set his datapad in front of him. He drummed his fingers on his desk. This account of Washam was unlike any he’d heard before—like any account of any point, for that matter. Some were better than others, sure, and then there were those absolute horror stories like Devers. But nowhere had Chhun ever heard of a point being accepted entirely by the leejes under his command.

  Could it be that Washam was truly different?

  And further, could it be that, after seeing what the rest of the points were like, the Legion commander at that time made Washam into something of a sleeper agent on Utopion?

  After Psydon, Washam’s career went straight to the gilded halls of the capital planet. That wasn’t uncommon. Most points served a quick combat tour and then spent the rest of their time in the Legion waiting for their turn to become a part of the political machine. Washam, however, had remained in the Legion—and Chhun was now seriously wondering whether that had been to serve as an insurance policy in the event that Article Nineteen ever had to be used. Surely the Legion brass knew any attempt to execute Article Nineteen wouldn’t be easy, even as they drafted that particular article in the Galactic Constitution.

  The decision was eating Chhun up on the inside. Lives were at stake, and he didn’t take that lightly. He was the one who had made the call to volunteer his four-man team to support a surrounded quick reaction force on Ankalor. He didn’t argue when that team was ordered to hunt down Bum Kali. And as a result, he had been the one looking down at the remains of Fish, who had died to complete that mission.

  Can you risk even more lives based on this?

  In the end, no matter what he did, lives would be put at risk—he could only choose which ones. If he acted, the risk would be borne by his kill teams; if not, he would be leav
ing the captured Dark Ops leejes to their fate—which he was sure would be execution after a show trial. The Legion commander’s treatment of the zhee leader had left room for nothing else.

  Can you live with yourself if you just let this go?

  With a rapid-fire string of insults, Chhun cursed his own indecisiveness. It was as if he stood at the edge of a cliff, and knew he needed to jump, but was too afraid to make the leap.

  Impulsively, he pressed his comm button and awoke his aide.

  First Sergeant VanBuskirk answered sleepily, “Sir, you’re up dark and early.”

  “I won’t be the only one, First Sergeant. I want to see all TLs in forty-five minutes. Tell them to meet me in the bunker.”

  Chhun’s mind was racing to come up with what he would say to them.

  “I’ll have them there for you, sir,” VanBuskirk responded.

  The comm light went off, and Chhun let out a sigh. But the stress he felt deep inside his soul did not subside. He keyed in a new frequency on his comm and hoped that Admiral Deynolds would forgive him for the early wake-up.

  ***

  The lights inside the bunker were dim when Chhun stepped inside. A holographic Legion crest rotated above the briefing table, casting a pale glow on the faces of the assembled team leaders, who buzzed with conversation.

  “Gentlemen,” Chhun began, syncing his datapad to the display. “I understand you’ve been feeling cooped up on board the ship. All that is about to change.”