Points of Impact

by Marko Kloos

  Halley and I watch as the mules disappear around a bend in the road in the distance.

  “Hey, let’s change plans a little,” she says.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Skip the ‘getting sauced’ part of the day and the tour of the town. I’d rather not walk around in a settlement packed full of Fleeties on liberty. If there are watering holes there, they’ll be full of blueberry uniforms.”

  “Yeah, I think you may be right.” I scratch the back of my head and look around. “Well, what are we going to do instead?”

  Halley pulls out her PDP and turns it on.

  “I wonder if they have MilNet coverage out here already.”

  She flicks through a few screens and grins.

  “Son of a bitch. They do have MilNet. And not just a local one, either. Full satellite coverage, military and civvie bands.”

  “You’re joking.” I take out my own PDP, and sure enough—I have a satellite-based data signal to MilNet.

  “Son of a bitch,” I echo Halley’s sentiment. “All the comforts of home.”

  “Probably better than home,” Halley replies. “Satellite coverage is high-bandwidth. And they don’t have to share it among a lot of terminals out here. I bet the data throughput is five times what we get anywhere else.”

  Most colonies only have local networks run out of their central admin buildings, little network bubbles for each settlement for local comms and canned information. The settlements and bases in the solar system have delayed live links to the actual network because their admin facilities can pass traffic on to the big comms relays between the colonized moons and planets. But this is the first colony I’ve seen that has its own global satellite network.

  “They were really planning for the long term,” I say.

  Halley brings up a local map and zooms in on our position. Then she pans the map around a bit and studies it.

  “Looks like there’s a road bearing off to the left right past those greenhouses. The map says there’s a lake three klicks down from the intersection. Let’s go there and dip our feet in the water. I haven’t been to a lake in a while.”

  We pass the row of greenhouses, and the road leads over a short bridge spanning a brook. The water looks almost unnaturally clear. Just past the bridge, there’s a gravel path bearing off to the left and disappearing behind a low hill a kilometer away. We turn onto the path and leave the road behind us.

  “All right, so the blueberries aren’t all bad,” Halley says. “I should be sweating like a bastard right now, walking around in the sun like this.”

  “It’s self-regulating. The air-conditioning in CIC is always cranked up, but I’ve never been cold up there.”

  The gravel path runs along the brook for three-quarters of a kilometer. It’s not a wide brook, narrow enough that we could probably jump across it if we took running starts. The sound of the water burbling is one of the most peaceful and relaxing things I’ve heard in a long time.

  A few hundred meters down the path, we pass the last of the greenhouses. On our left, across the brook, the vegetable fields we saw earlier stretch out into the distance, dozens of hectares of food crops growing in the warm light from Leonidas. On our right, there’s a grassy meadow and the first signs of the nearby settlement half a kilometer in the distance.

  “It’s so quiet,” Halley says. “All you hear is the breeze. I don’t even hear any animals.”

  “They didn’t bring anything living but tree saplings, food crops, and livestock embryos with them,” I say. “Not even pets. I read up on it a while back. The place doesn’t have any wildlife. They didn’t want to introduce anything into the ecosystem uncontrolled.”

  “It needs birds. And insects.”

  “Bugs will come soon enough, I think. All it takes is for someone to bring in stowaways in their personal luggage when they resettle here. I’m shocked they’re not already knee-deep in house flies and mosquitoes.”

  The brook veers off to the right toward the fields, and we start climbing the low hill in front of us. This part of Arcadia is all rolling plains and hills. On the eastern horizon, the nearby mountain chain where we played hide-and-seek with the garrison’s Shrikes looms in the distance. Between the settlements and the mountains, there are pine forests running all the way to the foothills of those mountains, planted from seeds and saplings decades ago, when this place was still top secret and only known to the highest levels of government. They intended for it to be a new Earth, a backup plan for the NAC’s most elite members to make a new start with their families in case things completely went to shit in the Commonwealth. Faced with Lanky extermination after the loss of Mars, they just jump-started their exodus and pulled the trigger a decade early.

  “I wonder how the old residents feel about their new neighbors,” I say. “The new settlements. Imagine the horror when they found out it was all unwashed middle-class ’burbers.”

  “Fuck ’em,” Halley says. “They don’t like it, they can ask for passage back to Earth. This place is way too nice for them anyway. If I had my way, everyone who took a one-way ticket to paradise while the rest of us were about to get wiped out by the fucking shovel heads should be forcibly relocated to a penal colony crammed into a deep crevice on Mercury.”

  We reach the top of the little hill and pause to take in the view. In front of us, there’s a lake stretching out to the east, fringed by clusters of pine trees. On the southern shore of the lake, we see what looks like a pump station, although there are no water pipes going away from it and ruining the view. They buried them for protection, I think. Or aesthetics.

  “Now there’s a pretty sight,” Halley says, huffing slightly from our brief but brisk ascent. “You have to travel wide and far on Earth to get a view like this.”

  The lake looks close by, but it’s so large that it’s just an optical illusion. It takes us another twenty minutes until we are finally at the shoreline. The only thing spoiling the scenery a little is the pump station a hundred meters to our right. It’s a small, low-slung building that operates without emitting any noise to the outside world, but it still stands out in a picture-perfect view like this one. We walk eastward along the shoreline, away from the pump station. The water is lapping against the pebble-strewn sand shore in a slow, lazy, almost meditative cadence.

  When we’re well out of sight of the road and in the middle of a little pine forest, Halley sits down on a patch of grass near the edge of the water. The breeze rustling the tree branches carries the faint smell of pine resin and earth. She unzips her blueberry tunic and peels it off her shoulders. Then she lays it down flat behind her and lies back on it with a content sigh.

  “Now this is not so bad.”

  I do likewise and lie down next to her on the ground. The grass and moss underneath us are a perfectly soft cushion. I close my eyes and inhale the fresh air. It’s even cleaner than the mountain air in our little Vermont town, if that’s possible.

  “What are we going to do after this?” Halley asks. I look over to her, and she has her eyes closed and her hands folded on her chest.

  “What do you mean, after this? This deployment?”

  “No, after this job. After we get out of the corps, I mean. Whenever that will be.”

  “I’ve not really thought about that in great detail,” I say. “I figured we’d take our money and get a place in Liberty Falls somewhere. Maybe give what’s left to Chief Kopka and my mom. For all that free room and board we’ve been getting from the chief.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.” Halley’s agreement sounds provisional.

  “Why? Did you have something else in mind?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Just thinking about options. Before all the shit with the Lankies started, you got a free ride to a colony planet with your honorable discharge. Don’t you remember that from recruit orientation?”

  “I must have been distracted by the total babe they assigned as my bunkmate,” I say, and she smiles without opening her eyes. “No, I
don’t remember that.”

  “You had to have two full terms complete at least, but then you were exempt from the lottery if you wanted to go. Automatic winning ticket. I think the lottery allocation for vets was like five percent.”

  “Well, that all came to a screeching halt anyway. No more lottery. Or colony flights, except to this place.”

  “Yeah, but who knows? If we can push the Lankies back with these new ships, we may start the whole thing again. There are still a few colonies out there that haven’t been flipped by the shovel heads,” Halley says.

  “You think we’ll still be around when that happens?”

  “We’ve made it so far. And things aren’t as grim as they were right after they took Mars. When we had no way to fight back. It’s different now.”

  “Until they show up in the solar system again, with two hundred seed ships. Or with something else. We’ve come up with new weapons and tactics. Who says they can’t do the same?” I ask.

  “Yeah, in that case, we’ll be screwed no matter where we are.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “And that’s a big fat maybe anyway. For now, let’s just be happy that we aren’t in mortal danger and enjoy the scenery.”

  We lie in silence for a little while. With nothing but the soft breeze and the sound of water lapping against the nearby shore, it’s so serene that I could fall asleep in a minute if I allowed myself to drift off. Halley reaches over and takes my hand in hers.

  “What were you thinking?” I ask. “About after.”

  “I don’t know yet,” she says. “I do know that I want to be as far away from my folks as I can get. Vermont would be a good start, I suppose.”

  She rolls on her side to face me, and I turn my head to look at her.

  “But a colony. A place like this, anyway. Can you even imagine? Remember when we went down to Willoughby on the drop ship, and we talked about just taking the drop ship and disappearing on that planet, and nobody would have a clue where we went?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I reply.

  “This colony has fewer than a hundred thousand people on it, and it’s more than half the size of Earth. It’s practically empty. We could live in a settlement or let them put up an off-the-grid prefab out in the sticks for us. Drive the buggy out into town every other week for necessities.”

  “It’s not going to stay this empty.”

  “No, but they’re only settling fifteen thousand people a year here. One new settlement every year. If we go out far enough, it will be a long time before we have neighbors again,” Halley says. “Just think about it. The quiet.”

  “I am thinking about it,” I say. “Gotta say, it doesn’t sound terrible.”

  “Not terrible at all,” Halley says. She squeezes my hand lightly and lets go. Then she clasps her hands over her chest again and lets out a content little sigh.

  I think about what she just proposed. Leaving Earth behind after our service time is up. It really only means leaving our families behind because we don’t own any property except for a few sets of civvie clothes, but I know that she wouldn’t lose any sleep over putting 150 light-years between herself and her parents. I only see my mother on leave anyway, and by the time we’re out of the service, she may not even be around anymore. People who spent most of their lives in the PRC have a shorter lifespan than ’burbers and the upper class. I love my mother, but it’s probably a mistake to tailor my retirement plans to her life. And if I had the choice between Arcadia and Liberty Falls right now, I’d be very tempted to pick the colony. Most of the NAC would kill someone for a shot at life on a clean, empty planet with abundant natural resources, in a system far away from either human strife or Lanky incursions. If we ever get that choice, it will be more than 99 percent of the population gets.

  It’s warm and peacefully quiet here in the pine grove, and we don’t have anything else to do for the rest of our stay. When Halley starts breathing regularly a few minutes later and then starts snoring lightly, I decide to join her in a nap and let my brain drift off for a little while. Never waste an opportunity for taking a leak, grabbing chow, or taking a nap while in the military—you never know when you’ll get the chance for another one.

  When I wake up again a little while later, I blink and look at the pine needles on their swaying branches overhead for a little while. Then I check my chrono. We’ve been asleep out here for over an hour, and I am tempted to just go back to sleep and add another hour to the total because this is the most peaceful environment I’ve ever been in. But my stomach is starting to rumble, and I sit up to check the day pack for the ration bars we brought with us.

  Next to me, Halley is still asleep with her mouth slightly ajar. I watch her for a little while and marvel at how little she has changed since boot camp ten years ago. Time has been kind to her, even through ten years in filtered-air environments and many high-stress deployments. There are some gray streaks evident in her hair in the sunshine, and she has little wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. But the familiar slope of her nose and curve of her jaw are as clear and defined as ever, and I could trace both from memory while half-asleep or fully drunk.

  I bend over to wake her up with a kiss.

  Both of our PDPs go off simultaneously with their politely urgent alert-message tones. Halley wakes and jerks her head up in surprise, and I have to pull back my own head so she doesn’t smash me in the teeth with her forehead by accident. I fumble for the PDP in my leg pocket and pull it out of its pouch.

  “What the fuck is it now?” I grumble and activate the screen.

  This time, it’s not a text alert, but a voice message from the XO of Ottawa. It plays as soon as the device senses that I am looking at the screen. Next to me, Halley turns on her own PDP and looks at it with a squint.

  “This is the XO. All corps personnel, return to the nearest military installation for immediate return to Ottawa. All liberty is cancelled. I repeat, make your way to the nearest base as soon as possible and report in for transport back to the ship. Do not stop to smell the flowers on the way back. We are preparing for departure. XO out.”

  “Well, that’s nice,” I say. “Don’t tell us why or anything.”

  “Lankies?” Halley suggests.

  “I don’t think so. He would have told us so, and the ship would be at combat stations with the remaining crew already. They wouldn’t wait for everyone to get back to the ship.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  I know that the XO wouldn’t cancel liberty and recall us unless he had a really good reason, one that won’t result in mutinous rumblings from the majority of the crew. But I still feel cheated out of a full day down here with Halley. We got a walk and a nap, and now it’s back to the barn already. But the second and third liberty shifts didn’t even get that much—they’re still up on the ship and waiting for their turn.

  We gather our day packs and put our tunics back on.

  “We’re going to have to double-time it back,” I say. “It’s just three klicks away. We can run that in twenty minutes.”

  “Fifteen,” Halley says.

  “Someone is confident in her aerobic conditioning,” I reply.

  As we shoulder our packs and get ready to run back to the base, Halley looks at the clear and inviting water of the lake with an almost mournful expression on her face.

  “Well, fuck. We came a hundred and fifty light-years, and I never even got to dip my feet in the water.”

  CHAPTER 16

  URGENT DISPATCH

  The ride back up to the ship takes twenty-five minutes from takeoff to skids down on the flight deck, but everyone in the ship is tense and anxious, so it feels much longer than usual before we are back on Ottawa and out of the cargo hold.

  “I’m going to CIC,” I tell Halley once we check ourselves back in with the OOD. “They’ll tell us what’s happening soon enough, but if I find out anything above and beyond the 1MC update, I’ll let you know.”

  “Please do,” Halley says.

 
She hugs me briefly. Her uniform tunic still smells like fresh air and grass. If this is to be our last happy moment together, it isn’t a bad one. But I don’t tell her that because she’s anxious enough as it is. The crew chief and pilots either didn’t know the reason for the liberty cancellation, or they were under orders not to tell before we could be given the official word.

  Halley heads for Pilot Country, and I go up to the command deck to relieve the combat controller on duty at the TacOps station. If we are looking at another crisis, the best way to stay in the loop is to be in the same compartment with the ship’s commanding officer and XO.

  The mood in the CIC is tense but not panicked. As soon as I walk in, I glance over at the holotable and the tactical orb projected directly above it. When I see that all the icons on the display are blue, I allow myself a small sigh of relief. Whatever the problem, it’s not a Lanky seed ship bearing down on us from somewhere in the system. Otherwise we’d be at combat stations and running target solutions already.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Staff Sergeant Wilcox as he clears the TacOps station for me to take his place.

  “Nothing good,” he murmurs. I see him glancing at the CO and XO, who are standing at the holotable, engaged in quiet conversation. “The skipper’s about to go on the 1MC,” he says.

  “Go and fill in the rest of the STT,” I say. He nods and turns to walk out of the CIC.