by F. E. Arliss
Back at the pick-up site, she followed Bauer at a run up the ramp of a ship she hadn’t seen before. She would later realize that this was the troop carrier and med ship. When her engineers and medics had left her on the drop ship, they’d gone into the belly of the larger ship and deployed onto this one. As the ramp leveled off into the main bay, she saw Andrea and Betsy handing out hydration and protein packs to the incoming troops. Chloe greeted each one with relief, checking on their welfare. Betsy let her know that she and Andrea were fine, but that Chloe herself looked like shit. Chloe was so tired she could only give the thumbs up and stumble after Bauer and into one of the web slings farther forward. Pulling off her goggles. She slumped back gasping. Bauer pulled his off and gave her a grin. They were both covered in dirt, ammo powder from the launcher, and sweat. Chloe was breathing as though she’d never get enough air, but Bauer just laughed at her and gave her a slight bump on the shoulder. “Not a bad job for a rookie,” he said laughingly. Chloe gave him a tremulous smile and patted his arm in thanks.
They watched silently as other troops ran up the ramps, she saw her Corpsmen helping with the wounded and strapping them into special slatted stretcher grips on the floors. Katyia was there issue orders to the two and applying pressure packs to the wounded. “We should help,” Chloe gasped to Bauer. “Nah, ma’am. We’d just be in the way. Plus, I don’t think you could probably control your limbs about now,” he said winking at her, then going serious. “They’ve got a system, and we should just stay clear.”
It seemed only seconds before they were lifting off. Chloe had seen Donji board and several Razorbacks came in last carrying a soldier missing the lower half of one leg that had been tourniqueted with a belt. Chloe heaved a sigh of relief and of sadness. Some had died. The enemy site had been destroyed. Her Corpsmen were all safe, and the wounded man picked up. There was nothing more she could do at this moment in time. Seconds later she was asleep, slumped dead to the world in the most comfortable web sling she’d ever felt.
Chapter 18
Traitors
The return to Orbit Guard station passed literally in the blink of an eye, as Chloe didn’t open hers a single second until they bumped onto the landing pad on the station. Opening her eyes and glancing around, Chloe saw that the stretchers were being off-loaded first and then the remaining troops filed out. She was one of the last officers off. Bauer had disappeared somewhere on the return while she’d been passed out dead to the world. Hoisting her aching body out of the web sling she stumbled down the ramp.
She could see the Colonel up ahead checking in with the Major Donji and Major Torrence. The sullen Major Schlipp was nowhere to be seen. Chloe watched as Leo’s eyes settled on her. His face stoic, he gestured her over to the group. “Welcome back, Lieutenant,” Leo stated. “We will have a briefing in my office in thirty minutes to go over today’s mission,” I’ll see you there, he said. Turning briskly away, he strode toward the med bay.
Major Donji turned to her, and grinned. “Don’t worry. You did well on the mission and from all accounts, so did your Corpsmen,” he said, then strode off as well.
Chloe walked in a daze to her quarters. She ached to slump onto the bunk, but knew if she did, she’d never get up. Instead she stripped and stepped into the shower cubicle. For the first time ever, she was happy to feel the splashing blue liquid hit her face.
Thirty minutes later she slid into an empty chair at the conference table in the Colonel’s office. Chloe frowned a bit at seeing that Major Schlipp was still absent. Major Torrence and Major Donki both nodded politely to her. Donji winking covertly at her from one eye. Leo returned the questioning quirk of her eyebrow towards Schlipp’s seat with an almost imperceptible nod of his head. If she hadn’t known him so well she wouldn't have caught the minute gesture. Chloe waited patiently while Leo scrolled through his tablet for a few more seconds.
“As the three of you are most likely aware, the Arachnian’s forward compound with over a dozen ships was destroyed during the mission. It appears that most of the Arachnian troops had been deployed to the fake coordinates that we issued. By destroying their fleet of forward carriers, we’ve crippled them for a while. Job well done on that Major’s,” the Colonel said grimly. Both Majors simply nodded in return. There were two squads of Arachnians protecting the base, and they were all eliminated. We lost five soldiers and have half a dozen more that are currently in med bay. One of those soldiers is Major Schlipp,” Leo stated. “He was picked up by a couple of members of Torrence’s Razorback Guard when Major Donji forwarded the information provided by Lieutenant Sedgewick of a life sign on the periphery of the fighting.”
Chloe was stunned. That life sign had been Schlipp’s! Well, well! She’d saved the smirking toad’s life. She came back to the present moment just in time to see Donji and Torrence exchange a questioning glance. “What was he doing on that side of the zone, sir?” asked Chloe. “I thought Tiger Guard was deployed on the port side of the compound.”
The Colonel looked at all three of them with a grim countenance. “It would appear that Major Schlipp was trying to make it to a small ship that was hidden under a camo net on the edge of the compound.”
This statement was met by stunned silence. “When the two Razor Guard soldiers swung out to pick him up after Lieutenant Sedgewick’s notification, Major Schlipp begged them not to kill him when they approached. The two thought he was delusional until the wounded Arachnian started crawling to the side. When they approached to render him immobile, they then discovered the craft. When they turned back to Major Schlipp he was trying to crawl toward the craft as well. Both members of the Razor Guard believe he was trying to escape in the craft. It would appear that he and the Arachnian were fighting over the ship. Razor Guard restrained him, bound him and brought him back,”, the Colonel said into the shocked silence.
“When Schlipp was brought aboard they sedated him. Upon his return to the station and regaining of consciousness, he was told that Lieutenant Sedgewick had saved his life. We’d posted two guards in med bay as his actions had been deemed extremely suspicious. At hearing Lieutenant Sedgewick’s part in his retrieval, he began a rant about his hatred for women and how Orbit Guard was diminished because of their presence. He was then taken into custody and placed in the medical brig,” the Colonel continued.
“He has confessed to taking a payoff from the Arachnians in order to give away the women’s habitat position on the ship. He swears to no further treasonous acts. But does state that there are other informants on the ship. He has of now, not yet shared who those contacts are,” Leo said with a hard stare. “We’ll have to lean on him. Not that I mind that after what he’s done. It seems that when he found out in med bay that Lieutenant Sedgewick had saved his life, but that he’d already shown his treachery by begging the two members of Razorback not to kill him, he thought he better start negotiating for leniency,” Leo grimaced with revulsion as he stated this.
“Wow,” Chloe said. “Wow, that is just unbelievable.” Though this seemed a poor response to all that had happened, it was all she could think of. The two Majors simply met her statement with a nodding of heads.
“If there are more traitors, we’ll have to flush them out if he won’t talk,” Major Torrence said, exhaling slowly, his long knottily-muscled body tense behind the edge of the table. “Why would anyone side with the Arachnians. I don’t understand how that can even happen.”, he said grimly. “They eat us. He knows that, right?”,Torrence state with incredulity.
“I think it’s more about hate,” stated Donji. “Some people just need someone to hate. And if they’ve had bad experiences with women, like we know Schlipp did, they’ll take it out on any woman,” he continued. “It would seem easier to hate the Arachnians, but there’s no accounting for insanity,” Donji said with sadness in his voice.
“Don’t forget the motive of greed,” Chloe added. “They paid him. Maybe they’re paying the others too. Plus, why is it that people who do these kinds of
things always think that none of it will actually happen to them. What did this ass hat think? That they weren’t going to eat him in the end too? Talk about an idiot,” she snarled.
Leo corralled them all back into silence with a sharply barked, “Enough!” He let out a long sigh. “I’ll interrogate Schlipp again tomorrow. For now, he’s been sedated and med bay says according to regulations we have to wait till he wakes to take this up again. For once, I’d really like to break the rules. But since we don’t eat our own. We’ll comply in this for the sake of not descending to their level. Dismissed. We’ll reconvene tomorrow at 10:00 hours.”
Five minutes later Chloe and Leo were back in their quarters. “How are you beautiful?” Leo murmured into her hair. “I’m proud of your actions on this mission. You and your Corpsmen did a tremendous job.”
Chloe clutched at Leo’s shirt front, nestling in as close as she could get. “I was scared. But I didn’t let it stop me. I’m glad the Corpsmen did well. I didn’t even see any of them after we deployed until I got back on the ship. I’m glad they’re ok,” Chloe sighed out with a long breath of relief.
“I was worried about them being bullied, but all their commanding officers had nothing but praise for them. Plus, I get the feeling that those five women can take care of themselves,” Leo said with a smile against her neck. “I’d like you to debrief them just to make sure that everything went in a professional manner. I don’t want any of them being harassed in any way,” he stated.
“I'll do that in the morning while you’re in the medical brig,” Chloe said. “I’m looking forward to hearing what they have to say about their first missions. All I can tell you is that when I saw Betsy and Andrea at the top of the ramp handing out hydration boxes...that was all that got me up that last bit of steel.”, she said with a grin up at Leo. “I thought my legs were going to collapse. I need to work out more.”
“Shall we start now?” Leo asked, rubbing his hands down her body.
Chloe smiled tiredly up at him. “Just so long as I don’t have to move much,” she said with a wink. “Unless you think you can wake me up a bit?”
Leo met that challenge by depositing her on the bunk and following her down. “No sleeping on my duty,” he muttered before covering her mouth with his own.
Chapter 19
Mole
Chloe woke the next morning moaning in pain. “Argh, shit!” she yowled as she tried to sit up on the edge of the bunk. “What the heck? Oh, holy Toledo, I’m a wreck,” she whined. Stumbling into the shower, she was once again happy to feel the warmth of the blue liquid shower. “Never thought I’d be grateful to Port-a-John,” she said patting the side of the cubicle. “But I am. Thank you shower.” She stepped out feeling better, donned her uniform and strode off toward the cafeteria to check in with her women Corpsmen. She was guessing that they’d all be congregated there to hear about the mission and she wasn’t wrong.
There was a chorus of greetings as she rounded the corner into the mess. Clapping began from all sides of the room, and Chloe grinned took a bow, and then motioned for the other five women to stand as well. They joined hands and all took a bow together, hamming it up a bit for the soldier’s sake's. When it all died down the women sat and began discussing how it had all gone. Chloe would meet with each woman later to talk in private as well and made appointments for later that morning with each of them. She couldn’t help but notice that Sergeant Clayton, the munitions officer that had harassed Helen, was glaring at them viciously as they left the mess and separated to their assigned posts. His twisted visage made Chloe shiver with apprehension.
At 10:00 hours Chloe once again sat at the conference table in the Colonel’s office. Torrence and Donji were there as well as several of the Orbit Guard’s Forward Investigators. The Colonel looked very grim. Though he started by thanking them all for coming and asked her if she’d had a chance to talk with her Corpsmen over their experience. Chloe said she had spoken with them as a group and they’d all been in good spirits. She continued on to say that she’d also spoken with Katyia, the Corpsman medic on the deployment and she’d thought they’d been very helpful and that both Selina and Andrea had been great assets. Neither engineering assistant had anything other than excitement in their feedback to her. They’d loved the opportunity of forward deployment.
With that out of the way, Leo began the heart of the discussion for the day. “In conjunction with Orbit Guard Investigators, I have once again interrogated Major Schlipp. It appears that a good long sleep under sedation has done nothing but strengthen his resolve to keep quiet about his contact on board the Forward Station. He’s hinting that he has much to bargain with and that his ‘associates’ can destroy the station at their whim. If that is true, it would mean that they either have a suicide wish, or they have a means of leaving the station,” Leo stated.
“Major Donji, cancel all launches, no matter the designation of duty. I want every ship, of any size, gone over top to bottom to see who was scheduled for departure, or even routine maintenance on a ship large enough to make the hop to any ship, station or planet,” the Colonel directed. Donji immediately began tapping furiously at his tablet.
“The Orbit Investigators have looked in to any crew members that have records, or any instance of violence, bullying, or have traumatic events during their earlier years, as our ship’s counselor tells me that can be trigger,” the Colonel said, nodding towards Chloe. “Here is a list of crewmen that have any instance, whatsoever, in their pasts that might comply with those criteria," Leo said, sending the list to each of their tablets.
There were a few minutes of utter silence as each of them poured over the list for any item or person that might stand out from the rest. Major Donji brought two names to light of crewmen he knew from the list. Neither he estimated were capable of treason. Major Torrence also had several that he knew were struggling with poor morale, but again thought in one case it was due to death in the family and being far from home, and the other two were just seemed to like to brawl. He deemed them both Irish incorrigible rascals, but nothing harmful.
On the other hand, both Orbit Investigators named a person they thought capable of treason. One was a former activist against corrupt police in his native state of Idaho, and the other was a former Greenpeace member who hadn’t been opposed to blowing up a few Japanese whaling vessels until he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison or five years in Orbit Guard on the frontier.
“That Ensign could be a problem,” the Colonel said. “Look into him. He’s got the ability to set explosives then that would make sense of Schlipp’s statement about ‘destroying’ the station.” The two Investigators nodded, both senior Investigator tapping away on his device.
A silence followed. Into which, Chloe muttered, “Well, I like Ensign Clayton for it. He’s on the list. And he hates us women.”
Leo pinned her with a stare. “Speak up Lieutenant!” he barked. “If you have a viable suspicion, let’s hear it!”
Chloe glared right back at him. “I said, I like Ensign Clayton for it. He’s been harassing Helen on the cleaning staff. He’s got access to munitions - hence the, ‘my associate can end you in a second charge’ makes sense. And, he was staring knife holes in the Corpsmen this morning when we got some applause in the mess. He hates us!” Chloe blazed at the Colonel.
“Fair enough. We’ll look in to him,” the Colonel said without a glimmer of emotion on his face. “Dismissed.” Chloe pushed back her chair fuming. She didn’t know why she was angry. Leo had acknowledged her suspicion and promised to look in to it. She just had a bad feeling in her gut right now and wanted nothing more than to go check on her Corpsmen.
“Lieutenant Sedgewick. Please remain,” barked Leo. Chloe turned to face him with a mutinous set to her chin. “What’s up?” Leo asked. “I can tell there’s something more than me just telling you to speak up. You’d usually snark back at me and be over it,” he said quietly. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know re
ally,” said Chloe quietly, all the wind taken from her sails by his question. “I just feel really worried and like something’s about to go wrong. I’m have this urgent feeling that I need to check on the women who went on the mission,” she said with a quiver in her voice.
The Colonel wasted no time. Tapping his comm, he barked out orders for each of the five women that had accompanied the squads on the forward mission to be accounted for. “Now we wait a few minutes and let them do their jobs,” he said, holding her gaze steadily with his own. “Always trust your gut.”
Several minutes passed, and the Colonel’s comm buzzed. “Reinegaard here,” Leo acknowledged. “Sir, we’ve got….”, the incoming voice was cut short by blaring claxtons. Chloe was really getting to hate claxtons. They made the acid in her stomach rile up and practically choke her. She could tell that Leo was still getting the message in his ear as he nodded and barked orders, continuing to hold her gaze.
“What is it?” Chloe asked tremulously, as the Colonel swung to face her more closely.
“Well, never doubt your gut,” Leo stated ruefully. “Ensign Clayton just tried to kidnap Katyia Rustalov. Unluckily for him, she kicked his ass,” the Colonel said with a grim smirk. “Let’s go. They’re holding him on Deck Eight and he’s threatening that unless we let him depart with Katyia, he can blow the ship. He’s been searched, and they’ve found no trigger on his person. I’ve ordered a munitions accounting and an ordinance sweep of each deck. An ordinance team is waiting outside the door to clear our way to Deck Eight. In the meantime, all other crew are ordered to remain as they are,” Leo said calmly, giving her the entire status in less than ten seconds.