Runs In The Family

by Kevin Ikenberry

  “Give me a time on target to that position.”

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  Coffey started to reach for his leg pocket again. “Terrain analysis of the area.”

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  I’ll decide the application or definition. Without thinking, he reached again for the flask, plugged it in, and had a last swallow before putting it away. Best to save some for the surface. Using a pudgy finger on the touchscreen, he rapidly drew signals to his units in order to effectively deploy them on the hills ringing the southern edge of the lake. “That lake have a name?”

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  Coffey snorted. What a damned nice place to sit out a battle. No sir, I cannot move to support your attack. I’m holding the key terrain of this sector. He laughed to himself. We’ll let some other bastards go to the grinder today. And I don’t have that glory-seeking pain in my ass on the ground either! “Identify the lake as Perfection Lake.”

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  Let’s see those staff assholes at TDF try to move me off these hills!

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  “What do you want, Trevayne?” Coffey growled and finished his crude map of positions. “I’m working on our deployment plan.”

  “Sir, First Platoon, Second Battalion is our lead element. They’ll be on the ground in just over ninety seconds. I was—”

  “Fine! Standby for my plan.” Coffey stabbed the display and sent the crude drawing to his units before switching to the command frequency. “Bullet Elements, this is Bullet Six. Defensive positions according to the graphics coming your way now. Take up positions looking in all directions and spread out wide in case those bastards lob a few nuke rounds at us this time around. Bullet Six, out.”

  The repulsor platform of the Intimidator whined to life, and Coffey raised his hatch and stood in the breeze. The air was cool and crisp against his face. He smiled into the wind and looked over the vehicle at the ground. Just as advertised, he thought with a grin. Across the narrow lake, maybe two miles distant, he could see a couple of widely spaced buildings of some type. Most likely vacant and not of concern, unless I need another drink. He chuckled as the vehicle slowed its descent under power and settled gently into the palette of autumn leaves. “Adjust our camouflage pattern to match. Set up direct laser communications with all team leaders and staff primaries.”

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  Coffey nudged the gunner, another sergeant whom he hadn’t bothered to meet. “Make sure we’ve got imagery in all directions. Tie all the vehicle pictures together and get it done before we hit the ground.” Of course the gunner wouldn’t get it done. That was the point. Don’t get it done and they’re out of a job, his Academy instructors said. The Commander deserves the best of everything, and sub-par performers were persona non grata despite the fact that the basic tasks were nearly impossible. Push, push, push Coffey told himself.

  “The only way men respond to leadership is if they are dehumanized. Do everything in your power to break down your soldiers’ ability to think for themselves. If you fail to assert yourself as an officer, as the sole person capable of making any type of informed decision, you will face a degradation of leadership that you cannot overcome. Remember that your soldiers are not people. They are soldiers. They are there for two purposes—to serve you as a duly appointed officer in charge, and to do what the Terran Defense Forces determine they are to do. Nothing else matters. Do not forget your duty.” The commandant’s nasal voice rang clearly in Coffey’s memory despite almost twenty years of service. That final graduation advice served Coffey well as the cornerstone of his leadership. The soldiers themselves couldn’t help it, nor could they be expected to do any better. Every movie or holovid they’d ever seen portrayed soldiers as fumbling idiots who were effectively shaped up by the drill sergeants and officers, who showed little emotion and drove them mercilessly.

  The foliage was thick enough to conceal the vehicle, but the trees and surrounding exposed rocks would provide little protection. Coffey shook off the thought. The position was perfect. Every TDF Commander will see I’ve secured the most influential terrain in this sector by force. They might even give me task force control. Three full regiments!

  Coffey stood in the hatch and used his helmet’s binoculars to scan the horizon. The lake appeared the placid gray that defined cold. There was nothing he could see of value. All in all, it was perfectly quiet, like sitting in a duck blind on a day when the ducks would be nowhere in sight. The thought of getting one over, at least for a little while, brought a smile to his face. Yes, this was going to be a good day to sit out a battle!

  * * * * *

  Fifty-Five

  Darren McMasters fancied himself a student of history. For his first two years at Cardiff, he’d lingered for long periods of time in the holosims, experiencing the critical moments of Earth’s history. There was no attending the Gettysburg Address, and the experiences of the 9/11 attacks on New York City were two-dimensional news broadcasts at best. Still, there was significant benefit to the study of history, as his instructors said. Humanity is doomed to repeat our mistakes without learning how not to. Sitting in the Prelate’s stateroom aboard the Executive Platform Kilkenny, McMasters cradled a glass of cold vodka, no ice, and sat under the only light in the room. He’d sleep in a carefully sterilized bed, but he’d know Andrew Cartner and Tallenaara had been there just days before.

  Sitting in the near darkness, McMasters did not think much about his ascension to the role of prelate, nor did he celebrate it. He’d never liked beating Andrew at anything. After winning their first meeting in the intramural tennis tournament, Darren sulked in his suite, electronic music softly playing in the background, drinking a glass of cold vodka. The competitive urge had been too great, and he’d done what others would never consider. Beating the Prelate’s son handily could have jeopardized everything Darren’s family had worked so hard to have. But that wasn’t the case. Andrew Cartner had made it a point to cross over to McMaster’s part of the suite, knock on the door and sit in the dark as well. They’d become true friends that night. A night when he’d won something so inconsequential as a tennis match but gained a best friend. Tonight, he’d sacrificed his best friend to his own machinations.

  He turned up the music to drown out his thoughts. Ten years hadn’t changed his approach to centering himself. Tomorrow he would face his audience for the first time as prelate with a speech being carefully crafted by his writers. I need to sleep. Wouldn’t be a good image to have bags under my eyes for my first press conference, would it? He would have to be earnest, serious, and compassionate.

  And he knew that to appear earnest, serious, and compassionate he would have to banish all thoughts of selling out his planet to become the prelate. He’d certainly sold out his best friend, and Tallenaara was nowhere to be found. No matter. She’d never suspected anything anyway, besides my ability to drink and leer at women. He snorted to himself. The end truly does justify the means, he thought drolly. Thank you, Cicero. But now the end is a beginning and I have no idea where to go from here.

  The door chime beeped. Unfinished business, McMasters thought before calling up another set of lights. “Enter.”

  The door slid open, and a tall man with salt and pepper hair marched into the room, standing six paces from McMasters’s recliner. “Sir Prelate, Colonel Munsen reports as directed.”

  “You were supposed to be here two hours ago, Colonel.”

  The colonel stared at the wall above McMasters. “Sir, docking with a superluminal vessel under fold is quite dangerous and exceptionally complicated. There was a navigational delay that could not be helped.”

  “Please relax and sit down. May I offer you a drink?”


  “No, thank you, sir.” The colonel sat in the opposite chair but hardly relaxed. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  “What were you doing at the scene, Colonel?”

  “The scene of what, sir?”

  McMasters frowned. “Let’s cut through the bullshit, Colonel. Why were you at the scene of Prelate Cartner’s assassination?”

  “I believed that the situation, the Tuegs threatening withdrawal from the Legion and their repeated efforts to get Prelate Cartner off the planet for extended negotiations, represented a danger to him. I was too late.”

  McMasters steepled his fingers and drummed them for a moment. Surely this Colonel couldn’t suspect? “You don’t like me, do you?”

  “Give me a good reason why I should.”

  “Well, for one thing, your experiment can continue.”

  Munsen replied, “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

  “Isn’t that what you whispered to Tallenaara before she ran away? Something to that effect? Why she would run away and go...what do your people call it? Yes, off the grid.” McMasters smiled. “Your people and their quaint sayings!” He looked at Munsen and let his smile fade slowly. “You are not an imprint, but your deputy is. One of the most senior imprints created. Imprinted by his own great-great grandfather, who led one of the final assaults on Tehran during the last of the religious wars for oil and died in the attack. Mortally wounded by short artillery fire. Do I need to go any further?”

  Munsen shook his head. “You obviously are aware of the breadth of the imprinting program to this point.”

  “Except for why you targeted Tallenaara, my dear, old friend from Cardiff who happened to fall for the son of a prelate. Tallenaara came back to Earth at the direction of the Styrahi Council. She was released from her architectural position to immediately pursue a relationship with Andrew Cartner. Apparently, Tallenaara has a genetic mutation that may allow her to mate successfully with a human.”

  “I was made aware of her departure, sir.”

  “And you knew about the mutation?”

  Munsen nodded but said nothing.

  McMasters sipped vodka and crossed his legs. “Then let’s talk about your prospective imprint target. I believe he or she must be an officer in the Terran Defense Forces like yourself, and so would fall under my authority as the Commander-in-Chief, would they not? And as such, I believe I am authorized to inquire as to who they are and what your intentions were with them.”

  Munsen nodded. “You are certainly authorized to ask, sir. But that doesn’t mean that I have to tell you anything based on your need to know.”

  “Need to know?” McMasters leaned forward. “You’re going to see to it that I receive every morsel of information that I ask for, Colonel. If you fail to do so, I will court-martial you and seize all documentation regarding your imprint program. Why did you target Tallenaara?”

  Munsen shrugged. “Tallenaara was never the target, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Tallenaara was who the Styrahi Council provided. I knew nothing about her prior to her contact with the target. Captain Mairin Shields is the imprint, based on this particular experiment. Her imprint is a Class Five, the first one of its kind. She can literally remember things from her imprinted subject on an unconscious level. Her acumen for military operations is unheard of for a twenty-two-year-old straight from the Eden Academy. My intention with her imprint was to break from the walkabout protocol. You are familiar with that?”

  McMasters shook his head. “Enlighten me.”

  “All of our imprints, except for Captain Shields, have completed their imprinting and recovery on Earth. A portion of that experience is, the imprinted subjects are given twelve months leave to get their minds together. Literally. They are sent walkabout, meaning they have little supervision but a blank check to essentially go wherever in the world necessary to facilitate the mind grasping the imprint. The program is exceptionally successful. Only one imprint has failed to complete the walkabout experience and enter service with the TDF.”

  “And what happened to that subject?”

  “Committed suicide. Leapt off a mountain in New Mexico.”

  McMasters chuckled. “So only one of your subjects has failed? Remarkable.”

  “Thank you.” Munsen relaxed slightly. “With Captain Shields, I was trying to do something different based on the completeness of the imprint. I wanted to place her at Libretto for a faster recovery period, and in the hopes that she would bond with something there. I had her under nearly continuous surveillance during her stay on Libretto through one of my operatives. Captain Shields met Tallenaara as planned. We have reason to believe the experiment was successful.”

  “What are you not telling me?” McMasters squinted. “My earlier threat is still valid.”

  “I understand that sir, and frankly, your threat doesn’t scare me at all. I’ve served thirty years in the Terran Defense Forces and further back when we were still called the United Earth Armed Forces. I’ve earned and lost two stars. Did it ever occur to you to ask your questions about Tallenaara ten years ago?”

  McMasters waved all the history away. The past never mattered. “What are you getting at? Styrahi students attended universities all over the world.”

  “And how many of them entered into relationships with human beings in direct disobedience to the Styrahi Council?”

  McMasters squinted. “Disobedience?”

  “Those Styrahi students received explicit instructions that they were not to become emotionally involved, with one exception.”

  “So why allow Tallenaara to enter into a relationship? Because she was going to Cardiff? Because of Andrew Cartner?”

  Munsen smiled. “Hardly. The Styrahi Council may have known that Andrew Cartner was in school there, along with yourself and other promising young politicians of the time, but they had no idea that Tallenaara would enter a relationship with Cartner. Tallenaara has a genetic mutation never previously seen in a Styrahi. She may be capable of fertilizing a human egg or having her egg fertilized by a human male. For a hermaphroditic species that’s a miracle of its own, but the fact typical Styrahi genetic molecules do not even allow for the possibility made Tallenaara an experiment for the Styrahi. They wanted to know if it was possible to breed with a human. Conceivably, Styrahi-Human children could live to an average age of more than one hundred years. Many human diseases would be eradicated with a different physiological make-up than a human, and the capacity of the Styrahi intellect could only serve to broaden human horizons. The possibilities of genetic inter-breeding of our species are endless in theory, for humans and Styrahi alike. We know that Tallenaara had intercourse with both Captain Shields and Prelate Cartner on numerous occasions. There was no evidence that Tallenaara’s reproductive system was ever engaged.”

  McMasters nodded. “I’m aware of all of that, Colonel. The Styrahi Council brought me into confidence at the start of your experiment. I believe we call that redundancy. We have to find Tallenaara.”

  “No.” Munsen shook his head and raised one hand with its palm facing McMasters. “One, I doubt anybody is capable of finding her on a world she helped to build. Two, that woman has been through enough. I am not about to assist you in tracking her down. At this point, if you wish to continue an experimental course of action, we have more than enough genetic material to attempt replication. I doubt our effort will be successful, but like the original series of imprintings completed with Styrahi assistance generated new data sets, further experimentation could certainly have some benefits.”

  McMasters nodded. “Cloning? You can do this?”

  “No, we can attempt it. I have a team in place ready to do just that, sir.” Munsen took a deep breath. “Either changing the law or hiding the scope of the project from your own Council is your matter.”

  “And if it doesn’t work? You’ll still have the potential to imprint soldiers?”

  Munsen nodded. “We have over six million valid DNA samples of Amer
ican, British, Australian, and Russian soldiers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to imprint on genetic descendants.”

  “Surely some of those samples have no descendants.”

  “Yes, sir,” Munsen nodded. “But that doesn’t mean that we might not be able to replicate them if we’re successful with Tallenaara’s genetic material. We might be able to generate our soldiers without having to compromise the development of human values over the last two centuries. A vast majority of our current imprints will not survive this conflict. Those that do may have difficulties re-integrating into society without further development.”

  McMasters smiled. Rarely did someone beat him at his own game. He looked away from Munsen and the smile faded. He’d been thinking of history before Munsen arrived, particularly the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. What did Lyndon Johnson really feel that night? Was he a part of the greater conspiracy? How must it have felt to pick up the fledgling efforts in Southeast Asia? Sure, he landed men on the moon, but staring at a war he’d really not had more than a tacit understanding of, what did LBJ think that first night? Did he wonder if it was worth it after all? Was he guilty, too? Were their demons in his dreams? Did he feel like me?

  McMasters cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was just thinking about your proposition.”

  “It’s not a proposition, sir. Tallenaara is left alone or I will order the destruction of all imprinting materials, experiments, and data.” Munsen sat motionless, his eyes clear and calm.

  Keep your enemies closer. Especially a man willing to do what’s right at any cost. “Colonels do not set terms with the Prelate,” McMasters said through gritted teeth.

  Munsen smirked. “You really don’t have much choice, sir. I believe the Styrahi Council suspected your intention to have Cartner assassinated.”

  “You believe it was my intention? I believe the Greys managed to kill Andrew Cartner. Terrible shame, really.”