Markov's Prize

by Mark Barber

  “I’ll have that after-action report to you by tomorrow morning, sir,” she said formally as the three troopers passed by them.

  “Erm… good, see that you do… no rush…” Tahl stammered.

  Rhona walked past him to climb the wide staircase leading to her room, appreciative of the momentary distraction from the melancholy thoughts racing around her head.

  ***

  The buzz of half a dozen polite conversations drifted across the hot, night air as Van Noor stood alone at the edge of the courtyard, staring up at the stars. He searched the dark purple sky until he found a familiar constellation, and then counted his way across the flecks of light to find home. That morose sensation of homesickness had been kickstarted a few hours before when, whilst wandering the grounds which surrounded the impressive old house, Van Noor had chanced upon a child’s treehouse tucked away in the corner of a vast field. At that moment, he had made the decision that as soon as he was given any leave, he was going straight home and getting his family back. He was adamant. Nothing would change his mind. Now, four or five hours later, his confidence in the plan was already faltering.

  “You don’t have a drink,” a familiar voice grumbled from behind him.

  Van Noor turned from his position by the small fence which separated the courtyard from the ornamental gardens and saw Owenne striding boldly over from the dining hall, carrying three crystal glasses, with a potent looking bottle under one armpit.

  “Man of your caliber, this far from the frontlines, momentary respite from responsibility, you should be drinking.”

  Owenne slammed the three glasses down on a white garden table next to them and set about filling them from the bottle. Behind him, the leaders and captains of the formation’s other companies sat on benches and chair in small groups, enjoying the mild evening with drinks and smokes. Owenne returned a respectful nod from Strike Commander Orless, the formation commanding officer, who sat with a quartet of strike leaders from Alpha Company.

  “Where’s that soft bugger, Tahl?” Owenne enquired as he thrust the filled glass into Van Noor’s hand. “He should be down here and drinking, too.”

  “I don’t think he drinks much these days,” Van Noor said, taking a tentative sip from the glass and then exchanging an approving look with the NuHu mandarin. “This stuff’s good. Did you find it here at the house?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “So what’s the plan now?” Van Noor enquired. “You’ve dragged us off here to the other side of the world, we’ve cracked a hole in the Ghar defenses and surged through, now what?”

  “Good gosh, man, take a break!” Owenne beamed without making eye contact. “All is going to plan and another formation is keeping the pressure on whilst we get our breath back. Enjoy the view. Enjoy the silence.”

  “How do we get our breath back?” Van Noor folded his powerful arms. “We need replacements. At full strength, our company should be up at eighty-one troopers. We entered this campaign with substantially less than that. Now we’re down at twenty-five. Twenty-five soldiers in the entire company. So what’s your plan for getting our breath back?”

  “A reinforcement ship was on the way to the Sen System to bolster the defenses. I’ve… diverted it here. It’s due to enter the system in two days. Then you’ll get more soldiers.”

  “How many?” Van Noor demanded. “You’re talking about one ship and we’ve got two entire assault forces down here, with every company in every formation hanging out. How many reinforcements?”

  “Once the troopers have been proportionally divided in between the two forces, you can expect to receive, say, twenty replacements in your company.”

  “Twenty?” Van Noor exclaimed with enough volume to bring attention from the troopers spread across the courtyard. “I lost thirteen men and women this morning!”

  “Then rejoice!” Owenne slapped a hand lightly against Van Noor’s shoulder. “For your company will be stronger in two days than it was this time yesterday, even if all of the replacements are straight out of training. Ah… here he is!”

  The mandarin stepped across to force the third glass of spirits into Tahl’s hand as the company commander walked out to meet them. Van Noor had known the younger man long enough to pick up on his body language and detect when something was not quite right. But it would have to wait; if it was personal, it was not worth bringing up in front of Owenne.

  “The mandarin was just telling me about the legions of new troopers he’s arranged for us,” Van Noor greeted. “We get twenty boys and girls fresh from training.”

  “Gets us to half strength again,” Tahl shrugged, “better than nothing, I guess. God help them.”

  Owenne shrugged before grabbing his bottle and wandering off to talk to some soldiers from another company. Van Noor flashed a smile at Tahl.

  The two men stood silently at the edge of the garden for a few moments, looking across the neat beds of flowers under the stars.

  “You tried to contact your wife?” Tahl finally spoke.

  “No,” Van Noor said, “I’ve lost count of how many letters I’ve sent to the kids. But nothing to Becca. Comes back to that courage you were talking about. I haven’t got enough of it. But it’s better than it was, I’ve got contact with my children and that’s turned my entire world around. It’s not all I wanted, but it’s enough for me. More than enough, to have them back. Gotta keep looking for the positives.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Tahl flashed a smile. “I’m glad you turned your world around. I’m off for some sleep. Look… thanks for saying what you said to that pompous prick. I wasn’t in the mood for that tonight.”

  “Any time,” Van Noor shrugged. “Catch you in the morning.”

  Van Noor looked out across the gardens and to the fields beyond as Tahl walked away, his eyes just about making out the little tree house at the edge of the field.

  ***

  Surrounded by invisible night insects which chirped and rattled softly, Sessetti sat at the edge of the first field behind the enormous house’s servants’ quarters, looking glumly up at the night sky. It was near midnight and after writing the now standard letter to his parents, full of lies about how well he was and how well it was all going, he was now at a loss.

  “Shall we write a song?” Clythe offered from where he lay in the long grass next to him.

  “Not really in the mood,” Sessetti admitted.

  “You haven’t really been in the mood for about a month,” Clythe replied.

  “Yeah, funny that, isn’t it?”

  “Well, you need to get your head back into it, because when we go home, Dane is going to expect us to have come up with something. We can’t expect him to just sit there waiting for a couple of years without having something to show for it.”

  “Oh, grow up, would you?” Sessetti snarled, turning to face his old friend. “Dane’s already in another band. It doesn’t matter! Our school band doesn’t mean anything! None of it is important anymore! When you go home, you can get another band together.”

  Clythe sat up but remained silent. Sessetti could imagine his expression in the darkness. He did not regret what he had said, but he instantly regretted the way he had said it. Clythe needed a reality check, needed to understand that life had moved on from the adolescent days of band practices, parties, and gigs.

  “How’re my two pals?” A happy voiced chirped as Rhona flopped down to sit between them, wrapping an arm around each of their shoulders.

  In each hand she clutched two large bottles of pungent smelling spirits. Detecting that Sessetti had noticed the bottles, she continued.

  “That big house had some sort of booze cellar, so I swiped these for us before all the important people could get to them. I guess technically it’s looting, but I figured you guys are worth it.”

  Sessetti was suddenly aware of a fourth figure in the darkness behind him. He turned and recognized Varlton, a seasoned trooper from Squad Teal.

  “Varl’s just been tra
nsferred across to us,” Rhona explained, “so we’re up to a staggering four troopers next time we’re in a fight.”

  “Hello, guys,” Varlton said as he sat down opposite the trio. “I know you had the worst day possible. I’m not here to try to replace any of your friends, I’m just here to do my best.”

  “You can start by drinking,” Rhona said as she threw a bottle over to him, “because back where I’m from, you spend a proper amount of time thinking about friends when you lose them. Now I know we’re not supposed to grieve right now, but nothing says we can’t drink and talk about them all night, to show to each other that we care and we’ll miss them.”

  “They could come back,” Clythe offered as he pulled the top of his bottle, “you never know. They could have had successful regens. Rae did. She’s back home and all fine now.”

  “I think we’re kidding ourselves if…”

  “Maybe they will!” Rhona cut off Sessetti’s response. “But for now, I’m gonna start by taking a swig for Qan. I knew Jem and Gant a little better because at times they both hated me, and so we argued a lot, but I never knew Qan so well. He didn’t really talk about himself much, but when he did speak up, it was either to be the diplomat in an argument, or to make us all laugh. I’m sorry I didn’t get to know him better. He deserved it.”

  Rhona raised her bottle and drained the equivalent of two glasses in one prolonged swig.

  “He was a good guy,” Varlton added. “I knew him when he first arrived straight out of training. Like you said, kept himself to himself, but his heart was always in the right place.”

  “See you around, pal,” Clythe said quietly, “I hope the system brings you back. I want them all back, but if I really had to choose, it would be you.”

  “I want them all back too,” Sessetti exhaled, “but if just one could come back, even for an hour, I’d want to see Jem again. She wasn’t the nicest, she seemed to love winding us all up and watching the arguments, and I never understood that. But I think we all knew it was a front, and beneath it, she was hurting from something and just didn’t know how to deal with it. I think she was a good person underneath it all. And… when we were on leave, I woke up next to her and we never had a chance to speak about that and work it out. And now I never will.”

  Clythe burst out laughing. Sessetti felt rage burning inside him as he turned to glare at him.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” Clythe managed, “I’m laughing with you! Because if Jem was still here, then we’d all be laughing as she tried to squirm her way out of this! I wish she was still here so I could point right at her face and laugh!”

  Rhona began laughing, too.

  “Aw Jem… I wish you’d have told me, so I could make your life hell. Just like you would have done with me if the situation was reversed.”

  Sessetti unclenched his fists and took a breath. After a while, he laughed a little, too.

  “It is pretty funny,” he admitted, “I can still remember her face now when we both woke up, stinking of booze, and realized what had happened. I think her words were simply… ‘oh, crap,’ or something like that.”

  He took a long drink from his bottle and lay back in the grass.

  “Wherever Gant is now,” Varlton said, “I hope he’s got good hair. I never knew him that well, but it always struck me that his curly hair was pretty important to him.”

  “He was pretty vain,” Rhona admitted.

  “We all thought you and him would become an item,” Clythe said, “when you were arguing right at the start.”

  “Nah,” Rhona shrugged, “he’s not my type. I say that to a lot of guys, but I actually mean it with him. Good guy, great soldier. That’s how I’ll remember him. Cheers, dude.”

  Rhona drained another quarter of her bottle. Sessetti followed her example and took a long drink of the fiery liquid.

  “Remember that time Qan found the picture of Gant’s mother?” Clythe began laughing again. “Man, some things in this life should be sacred…”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Firebase Ghia

  Outskirts of Pariton

  Capital City

  Markov’s Prize

  L-Day plus 62

  The Duke slowed smoothly as it neared Firebase Ghia, the latest Concord stronghold built on Markov’s Prize. Strike Trooper Tannen Rechter looked nervously around the transport drone at the other occupants, all of whom – like him – were freshly qualified and had never seen a day’s combat. A trio of Dukes were carrying out shuttle runs from the landing site where the replacement soldiers had been delivered to, and Rechter found himself in the last transport bound for the 44th Strike Formation.

  He pressed his hand against his armored chestplate in an unsuccessful attempt to feel the wedding band which hung on a chain around his neck. His wedding day had not been what he had expected, although he appreciated Rila’s romantic gesture in proposing to him within minutes of C3 calling him up for military service. They had known each other since they were five years old; their mothers were best friends and they had been to school together. All his life, grown ups had told him that he would marry Rila one day and he had resented it, but as a young adult, he realized that resisting his love for her was only to prove everybody wrong, and that was no reason at all. Now, at nineteen years of age, he could spend the next two centuries of his life with her. He just needed to survive military service.

  The Duke stopped and the doors sprang open. Rechter felt another wave of calming thoughts brush gently through his mind from the shard as an automatic reaction to the fear he felt. It did not seem to be doing much, which made him wonder just how awful a state he would be in if his armor did not provide chemical assistance to stabilize his emotions. Rechter stood and followed the other nine troopers out of Duke and into the sunlight.

  The terrain surrounding Firebase Ghia was very different from the barren wasteland of the landing site. Lush blues and greens painted the surrounding fields and jungles under a clear sky lit with the system’s twin suns. The ground was churned up in places by muddy craters which could be nothing other than the evidence of shelling. An age old manor house stood a few dozen yan away, surrounded by smaller, similarly archaic buildings. Lines of machines, ranging from the smallest spotter drones up to the hulking C3M4 combat drones, lay under kinetic shelters whilst maintenance drones carried out checks and repairs. Only a handful of troopers were actually visible – Rechter assumed most would be safely underground in the firebase itself. To the east, pillars of grey smoke rose ominously from the far horizon.

  A soldier wearing hyperlight armor and a black beret was the only one waiting for them as they quickly filed off the Duke. The stern looking soldier regarded the new strike troopers as they ambled uncomfortably across to him. One of the new soldiers took the initiative and barked out a short series of commands.

  “Squad! Form two ranks!” The woman yelled, unnecessarily loudly considering that the command came through the troopers’ helmet sound interface.

  Not wishing to waste any time with arguing over what right the woman had to give commands to fellow replacement soldiers, Rechter took his place in the second rank of five soldiers and stood smartly to attention with his plasma carbine resting against his left shoulder. As the stern trooper walked over to them, Rechter’s shard connection commenced a re-integration program as it coupled with a new system. Lines of text scrolled across the left hand side of his visor display as he connected with his new unit, both administratively and personally. He felt just a little more confident and at ease with his situation, but inexplicably tired and a little resentful. That was the overwhelming emotion which was filtering through the shard he, and the other replacement troopers, had just become a part of.

  “Ladies, gentlemen,” the trooper said as he came to a halt in front of them, “I’ve just integrated you within our company shard. Welcome to you new home. You are now a part of Beta Company, 44th Strike Formation. Currently a part of the 17th Assault Force under Commander-in-Chief Diette.
I am Senior Strike Leader Van Noor, second in command of Beta Company. You will, no doubt, be apprehensive about arriving. Make no mistake, this is no peacekeeping duty you’ve joined – we are at war with a formidable opponent. But we will win. This is the first time any of you have ever been outside the Concord, and certainly the closest you’ve ever been to war. I can feel through the shard that you are nervous, and that is a perfectly normal reaction which will pass, in time. For now, I want you to report to your strike leaders which I will be assigning to you directly. The company commander, Strike Captain Tahl, will no doubt be around to meet you all individually. That’s all, dismissed.”

  At the command, the new troopers all turned to the right in unison and took one pace forward. A command and waypoint was transmitted to Rechter’s display; he and two other replacements were now a part of Squad Wen. The trooper who had ordered them into ranks, a woman named Meibal, according to the shard connection, was also joining the same squad along with Losse, a tall man he had a nodding acquaintance with from basic training.

  “Rechter, Losse, follow me,” Meibal ordered, turning to jog toward the waypoint off on the other side of the vehicle hangars and toward the old mansion which lay serenely in the late morning sun.

  The three troopers arrived to find four soldiers sat informally on a wooden fence which ran around one of the fields adjacent to the mansion. At least Rechter knew they were Concord soldiers based on the information displayed from the company shard; to look at, he saw a quartet of figures with the vague outline of strike troopers, each covered from head to toe in a thick layer of something dark brown and viscous. All were mid-conversation, and laughing. Meibal removed her helmet as she approached, revealing her dark skin and delicate features. Rechter and Losse followed her lead. The first trooper sat on the fence looked up as they approached, a soldier who the shard identified as Varlton.