by Rick Partlow
I wasn’t sure how many songs we danced through, mostly because I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next one began. I only knew two things: one, I hated this music; and two, I could have watched her dance to it for as long as she’d let me. Eventually though, she shook her head, mimed wiping off sweat and nodded towards the exit. I followed her off the dance floor and out of the club, still holding her hand. The music cut off like a switch had been flipped when we passed through the second set of doors into the access corridor that led to Le Maintenant’s exterior.
The street outside was brisk compared to the heat of massed bodies inside the club, and the lights of the city couldn’t quite wash out the glow from Alpha Centauri A and B in the night sky, even if it did overpower the rest of the stars. Jenna looked up at the twin stars with a broad smile, still holding my hand as she half-danced in the street, and I found myself smiling too.
“This is an amazing system,” she commented, waving a hand around us. “Three stars, and yet with all that complex gravitational interaction, both Proxima and the Alpha twins have stable planets and habitables.” She looked at me, shaking her head in wonder. “Some people think the Predecessors terraformed a lot of the planets in the Cluster, but even if they did, just to have this many earthlike planets…it’s just too big of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Where I’m from,” I said quietly, “we don’t believe it is a coincidence.”
“And where might that be, Caleb?” She asked, stepping closer.
I hesitated. I was supposed to be close-mouthed about my personal details but damn it, how was I supposed to have any sort of life if I had to lie about everything to everyone?
“Canaan.” I told her. “We’re a branch of the New Society of Friends.”
She gave me an odd look then, one I couldn’t quite read. “They’re pacifists, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” I replied, shrugging. “I don’t agree with them on everything. But I haven’t turned into an atheist just because of that.” I laughed, actually feeling pretty good for the first time in a couple weeks. “It’s not just an amazing system, Jenna, it’s an amazing universe.”
“Yes, it is, Caleb,” she agreed, with that look again. “Come on, let’s walk down to the lake.”
“So, where are you from, Jenna?” I asked her as we headed down Connover Street, away from the Industrial district, to Lake Wynona at the center of the city. It was a small lake, only about five kilometers around, but the trails around it were popular with the locals for walking and jogging, according to the city’s ‘net homepage. Even this late at night, there were at least twenty people around it, including seven other couples. You almost wouldn’t know we were at war.
“I was born on McAuliffe Station,” she told me. “I grew up in one or another of the Orbitals at L-5. My parents are researchers for Commonwealth Transport.”
Jenna took my hand and led me down towards the trail that ran around the lake. I looked a question at her shoes, which seemed more suited to dancing indoors than walking a dirt path but she chuckled that throaty laugh again.
"I have sturdy feet," she explained. "I took dance from the time I was three years old right up till my last year of college."
"Why'd you stop then?" I wondered. "Get a new job?"
"Something like that."
We made our way down to the trail and settled into a slow, comfortable walk. The surface of the lake was black and mirror-still, reflecting the glare of the street lights and the glitter of the stars like a second world existed down there, under its waters. Until ripples ringed out in concentric circles here and there, where some freshwater animal came up for a bug or a breath of air.
"You're in the military," Jenna said after we'd walked for a while. It wasn't a question.
I glanced down at my clothes self-consciously. I'd had the fabricators make me what passed for casual civilian clothes around here, but maybe I was wearing them wrong?
"Is it the haircut?" I asked her, brushing my free hand through my buzz cut.
"There are only three kinds of people who come out here who aren't emigrating permanently," she told me seriously. "There's Corporate Council types overseeing some project, university researchers looking for Predecessor remains, and Space Fleet." She smiled thinly as she regarded me. "You aren't a Corporate Council anything, not in those clothes, plus you're too young to be sent out to the star colonies even if you did work for the Council. You could be with a University graduate researcher, but the way you carry yourself doesn't say 'grad student' to me. You're alert and straight-backed, like someone used to being at attention a lot."
"Wow," I breathed. "That's very impressive. Are you a cop or something?"
I saw her eyes narrow just slightly, her mouth quirk and noticed a change in her pulse and body temperature from where I held her hand. My headcomp informed me that she was feeling stress and I wondered what the hell was causing that.
"I'm going to tell you the truth, Cal," she decided, her voice grim when it had no reason to be that I knew of. "It's going to piss you off, but you seem like a really nice guy and I don't like lying."
"What?" I asked, confused. A thought struck me. "You're married?"
She laughed at that, stopping and putting a hand against my chest. "No, I'm too young to get married." Well, I had thought so, but it was hard to tell with Earthers, since a lot of them have the high-end nanite treatments that keep them looking young way past a hundred.
Then she grew serious again and looked me in the eye, her green eyes glinting in the reflected light. "I work for Fleet Intelligence," she told me, and I felt a cold lump forming in my stomach. "Colonel Murdock sent me to..." She shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, to keep an eye on you two, to make sure you didn't fuck up and tell the first girl you met about what you really are."
"Oh." I let my hand slip free of hers, and felt my vision go slightly out of focus as I thought about the implications of that. "Shit. And I told you too much," I realized. I wasn't so much hurt that she hadn't actually been interested in me as I was scared that I'd fucked up.
"You told me about as much as the Bulldog said you might," she assured me.
I shook my head. "The Bulldog?"
"Oh," she chuckled, "you mean you've never heard that? That's Colonel Murdock's nickname in intelligence circles. They say when he gets hold of an idea, he worries it like a bulldog on a bone until he gets his way."
I thought about the hundreds of millions he'd managed to get Admiral Sato to invest in us, and thought that sounded about right. Then I shook that off and focused on the current problem.
"Okay," I sighed. "Lesson learned. I guess I get to stay on base for R&R from now on."
"I wouldn't do that to you, Caleb," she said, tilting her head towards me sympathetically.
"Call me Cal," I said spontaneously, not sure why I wasn't angry with her. "Is Jenna your real name?"
"Lieutenant Jenna Duquesne," she nodded. Then she smiled again and I remembered why I wasn't angry. "Maybe I should call you 'sir' instead of Cal."
"No, Cal's fine," I said. Almost without meaning to, we began walking again, side by side. "A few months ago, I was a Third-Class student at the Academy. A Captain's rank is more convenience for the brass than anything else." I looked at her curiously. "So, you must be older than me? Did you go to the Academy?"
"No," she said. "I was recruited out of a civilian college at the beginning of the war." She shrugged. "I'm a couple years older than you, I guess. Not enough to matter."
Hmm. Interesting turn of phrase. Not enough to matter for what?
"Gonna' be tough for me to have a relationship with anyone outside our team, I guess," I ventured, butterflies fluttering in my stomach as I realized exactly what I was about to say. "Don't want to screw up and blow our Operational Security."
She looked over at me, head tilted again in that sort of keen assessment. “Yes, I suppose it would be,” she said, keeping a carefully casual air to her words.
“I guess i
t’d be different if there were someone who was already read in on things,” I went on, pausing from the walk and forcing her to pause with me, looking at me curiously. “Someone who wasn’t on the team, but who was safe to talk to.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged playfully. “I think that would definitely be different.”
“Maybe someone who could keep an eye on me, and make sure I didn’t screw up again…”
“For God’s sake, Cal,” she said, planting a hand on a hip and looking at me askance, and I fought not to cringe, sure I’d gone too far. “Are you going to just stand there trying to be clever or are you going to kiss me?”
I may have been some backwoods farm-boy, but I wasn’t a stupid backwoods farm-boy. I kissed her.
Chapter Fourteen
I limped down the Raven’s boarding ramp, weariness dragging at me mentally and physically. I wasn’t feeling any pain, and my leg would be completely healed in a couple days even if I didn’t get treatment at the base, but the nanites had drained me to repair the damage from the tantalum needle that had shredded my left calf. I was getting as inured to my own injuries as I was to killing Tahni. That was what I tried to tell myself anyway.
“Told you things wouldn’t always be so easy,” Deke reminded me, looking up at the overcast sky and taking a deep breath of the mountain air. “Never thought I’d be so glad to see this damn place.”
I didn’t say anything, just kept limping. Deke talked to hear himself talk sometimes; I didn’t hold it against him, but I didn’t have anything else to say. It was another mission just like the others we’d been sent on over the last six months: we’d killed every single Tahni soldier in the fuel depot around the gas giant in the isolated border system and left a virus in their computers that erased all security data and would disable the weapons systems of any ship that accessed their network. But we’d had to shoot it out with a couple of them who’d been outside doing maintenance in suits when we’d first attacked, and I’d been hit. It wasn’t the first time for that, either. All the ops were starting to run together into one long montage of blood and carnage, and the occasional spike of pain was the only thing that differentiated one from another.
“Are you gonna’ go see Jenna?” Deke asked, as we passed the maintenance crew and their tow tractor on our way into the hangar.
There’d been no more hero’s welcome from smiling officers since we’d returned from the first op, and no one waited for us as we headed for the lift station.
“Yeah,” I decided, nodding. “After the debrief.”
“I swear, farm boy,” Deke laughed, “you’re the only guy I know who could get busted by one of Murdock’s narcs and be so hard up you ask her out.”
“You’ve made that joke before,” I reminded him, hearing the exhaustion in my voice. “Besides, how many times have you seen that chick you went home with the night I met Jenna?”
“Variety is the spice of life,” he countered, sounding a little defensive even as he tried to sound casual. “I’m not a settling down kind of guy.”
“Yeah,” I said skeptically. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with her neglecting to tell you she was married.” I pushed the call plate for the lift, leaning against the wall there while we waited.
“They aren’t in an exclusive contract!” He insisted, now sounding even more defensive.
“Where I come from, married is married,” I said, shaking my head.
His reply was interrupted by the lift door sliding open as our car arrived and we stepped into it.
“So, anyway, what’s the deal with you and the spy girl?” He asked me. “You guys serious or what?”
“Haven’t thought about it that much,” I said, shrugging. “Last time, I thought too much and look where that got me.”
Caleb, I “heard” Colonel Murdock’s voice in my head. From the way Deke’s head cocked to the side, I knew he was getting the transmission as well. You and Deke are the last team in. We need you in the Situation Room ASAP.
Be right there, sir.
“You know,” Deke commented wryly, “this whole base has intercom systems everywhere, including the lift cars. He could have just used them. I think he just likes playing with his toys.”
That made me laugh sharply because it was true. I cancelled the floor I’d selected and chose one deeper still. The Situation Room was near the bottom of this pit, down a long and foreboding hallway, posted that day with the only human guards I’d ever seen in the installation: a pair of Marines in light combat armor, Gauss rifles held at port arms across their chest.
Deke stared at them, laughing at the absurdity of it as we passed by their posts and into the chamber. I nodded to them, trying to be civil, but the Marines remained mute behind their faceless helmets, as motionless as statues.
The Situation Room was packed, with more people than I’d seen in it all the months we’d been there. Everyone else on the team was already seated at the single, long table and their faces turned towards us as we approached it, nodding or saying a quiet “hey” or “hello.” Holly smiled at me, and I waved back, though we hadn't really talked at all since our first mission. Mat didn’t speak or move, his mouth set in a grim line, looking as angry as I’d ever seen him. Major Huntington was there and so was Colonel Murdock, which was also odd---usually he was the last one to arrive at any meeting.
The oddest thing, though, was the other senior officer present…because there was never any other senior officer in this place. This guy was tall and slim and as pale and blond as an Albino and wearing a meticulously tailored uniform with Admiral’s insignia. He stood watching us carefully as we filed in and I instantly didn't like him.
“Have a seat, gentlemen,” Colonel Murdock told us, his voice neutral, his face carefully impassive. Major Huntington wasn’t quite as successful keeping his feelings out of his expression and he looked like he’d taken a bite out of something sour.
“Now that you’re all here,” the new guy spoke and his voice was as smooth and clean as his uniform, lacking the slightest accent, “we can get started. I’m Admiral Krieger from Fleet Operations, and let me just say right off the bat that my being here in no way compromises your security. The knowledge of your existence is highly compartmentalized still.”
You know about us, motherfucker, Deke said in my head as if he were talking to the Admiral, and that’s one more person than should.
I fought not to nod. This was bullshit.
“I wouldn’t be here at all, but this is a momentous occasion,” Krieger went on, smiling broadly and insincerely. “In less than five hundred hours, we are launching a joint operation to retake the Demeter colony.”
I shaped a silent whistle, and I heard Reggie Nakamura mutter “Holy shit.”
Demeter had been occupied by the Tahni over a year ago, long before the public had been allowed to know about it, even before we’d heard the rumors in the Academy, and there’d been no serious consideration of retaking it. The Commonwealth had landed some successful punches at the Tahni since the Attack Command’s missile cutters had started their hit-and-run operations, but all that had done was force the Empire to consolidate its gains and sit back in the defense. And it would be damned hard to take back ground without capital ships to hold it.
“I can tell by your reaction that you understand what a major decision this has been. This goes all the way up to President Jameson. He’s decided that the Tahni Empire has to be taught a lesson, and you brave young men and women are just the people to teach it to them.”
Oh, for Christ's sake, someone get this guy a bib before he starts drooling, Deke kept up the silent commentary.
"A month ago," Krieger told us, "we inserted infiltration agents from the Department of Security and Intelligence onto Demeter to organize the civilian resistance against the Tahni occupation."
Department of Shitty Intelligence, Deke corrected him. None of us had a favorable opinion of the Commonwealth's civilian intelligence agency, particularly since they were a perenni
al rival of Fleet Intell for funding and support.
"We'll be sending two of your teams in via drop pods to link up with the DSI and their militia assets. You'll use them to draw away the Tahni forces with a distraction attack while you infiltrate and disable their security network. The other Omega teams will be landing in their stealth ships along with two platoons of Force Recon Marines. Once the network is down, they'll assault the Tahni reactor complex and take it offline. If the reactor's dead, so are their ground based defenses. The Fleet Attack Command will be sending in two squadrons of missile cutters to deal with their orbital defenses, and we'll have a cruiser coming right behind them with the main Marine landing force."
He looked at each of us. "I probably don't need to emphasize that timing will be critical in each stage of this operation, which is why we're bringing you into it." He smiled again and I wished he'd stop. "Your reputation is quite impressive for the short period your group has existed."
I frowned and raised my hand. Deke rolled his eyes at me, but who knew how this asshat would take an interruption?
"Yes, Captain Mitchell?" he said, and I had the impression that he was trying to make himself look more clued-in by revealing he knew my name.
"Sir," I said, trying to keep my tone properly respectful, "are the details of this operation set in stone? Is there any room for adjustments?"
"I'm afraid not much," Krieger told me. "Contact with the DSI agents in place on Demeter is spotty and infrequent. And once you're onplanet, your only chance to contact the Fleet vessels will be once they Transition into the system...and at that point, all you'll be able to tell them is whether or not to abort."
I heard Daniela grunt softly, like she'd been punched, and I knew what she was feeling.
"Sir, if I may," Valeria spoke up, which I knew took a lot for her---she was basically shy in front of people, "aren't we balancing this on a rather sharp edge?"