by Rick Partlow
“And you didn’t consider this information as something I needed to know, sir?" I kept my voice strictly under control, not showing even a fraction of the anger I was feeling.
"I'd say, given your current state of mind," he replied, letting an eyebrow raise just slightly, "it was something I was completely justified in keeping from you." He shrugged. "And besides that, it was orders. This is straight from the President, Caleb. He's worried that publicizing Tahni successes could be detrimental to public support for the war effort."
I nodded silently, believing his reasons if not agreeing with them. He was right about one thing, though: I'd been in a bad place for months now, since Jenna had died. I hadn't been able to come up with a reason to keep going.
"Are we going to do anything about it, Colonel?" I think I knew the answer before he gave it, but I had to ask.
"The President and Admiral Sato have decided that it would be strategically unwise to attempt a piecemeal liberation of every colony the Tahni have occupied." The words were surgically precise, his face carefully composed. He knew exactly the effect this declaration would have on me. "They've decided that we should concentrate on bringing down the Tahni Empire's ability to project their power on an interstellar level. Once we do that, the belief is that they'll be forced to withdraw their forces from our territory."
"What about the people?" I asked quietly, trying to keep from giving in to the pain and rage that fought for supremacy in my head, trying to keep from screaming that this was my family he was talking about.
"Caleb," he said regretfully, almost gently, "among the intelligence I've been ordered to keep quiet is what's been happening on Demeter since the attack there failed."
I felt a coldness in my chest, a fear I'd tried to keep buried for over a year. I suddenly remembered a quote my Literature teacher had shared with us in my first year at the Academy, something from a writer named Hemingway: "Once we have a war, there is only one thing left to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war."
"We could do it differently," I insisted, half to myself. "If we just used the Boys, left the DSI and the Marines out of it, we could pull it off."
"Maybe you could," Murdock admitted. "And maybe you'd all wind up dead, like Vallejo and Dominguez. I'm not willing to risk everything on that one roll of the dice."
"I understand, sir." Something clicked behind my eyes, a crystallization of thought I'd only felt once before, when Jason had left Canaan. "If it's okay with you, I think I'd like to finish my leave. I think you're right; I don't think I'm ready to process all this right now."
"I think that would be a very good idea, Caleb," Murdock agreed. He stretched a hand out hesitantly, as if the gesture was unfamiliar, and clapped me on the arm awkwardly. "I'll talk to Admiral Sato when the time is right. We have Scout probes insystem and I'm keeping an eye on them. I promise I'll let you know if anything changes."
"Thank you, sir," I said, nodding to him, then got out of his office as quickly as I politely could. Murdock trying to be sensitive was disturbing.
The corridor outside seemed empty. No one was around. Deke was still waiting for the graft, Holly and the others had gone on leave and even Major Huntington was off tinkering with the stealthships. I took the lift down to my quarters, a smaller room than I'd had on Hermes because I didn't share it with anyone. It was sterile and impersonal because I'd never bothered to make it anything else.
I'd left my duffle bag on my bunk and I pulled it open, fishing through neatly folded clothes I hadn't had the chance to wear on Eden until I found what I was looking for. I'd picked up the anonymized datalink at a street kiosk in Hesperides; they weren't exactly illegal, but a lot of the people who used them were doing illegal stuff. What I was doing was worse than illegal; it was probably treason.
I keyed in the address Jason had sent and typed a message on the touch-screen.
Meet me in 40 hours, I told him. Time for Plan B.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"This is the last time we can meet in person," Jason said, "and we'll have to keep our electronic communications short and simple, so we need to get all the details straight right now."
We were sitting on a pair of flat-topped rocks in a circle of them out at the perimeter of an old, seldom-used Marine training area about twenty kilometers outside Tartarus: the meeting place we’d agreed upon back on Eden. 82 Eridani was about a third of the way up the sky, above the low, green mountains in the western distance, and it was already getting hot.
I hated Inferno.
I could tell that being out here in the open in broad daylight was making Jason nervous; he seemed fidgety, his eyes darting around. He didn’t seem himself, but then how was I sure I knew him anymore? It had been years, and we were kids when we knew each other.
I should still be a kid, I reflected with a sense of bitterness that seemed to come from nowhere. It surprised me.
“Are you sure you can get the weapons?” I asked him. “I’m going to need several hundred, plus ammo and energy packs.”
“I know a guy in supply,” he assured me. “You sure you want Gauss rifles? Pulse carbines would be easier.”
“Lasers have too visible a thermal signature,” I explained to him. “Plus, they won’t penetrate body armor as easily.”
“Whatever you need, I can get it. Just tell me where and when.” His right foot was tapping nervously on the hard-packed ground and I could see sweat beading on his forehead.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” I blurted. “Jase, if we do this, you’re going to be court-martialed. You could wind up in a military detention facility for the next twenty years.”
“And you won’t get court-martialed?” He shot back.
“Hell no,” I returned, louder than I intended. I looked around with unjustified paranoia, but the barren flat plain of the old firing range was as deserted as it had been when we’d both arrived. “I’m probably gonna’ get killed,” I said in an affected casual tone. “It’s you that’ll be in trouble.”
He laughed at that, and I laughed with him. For a minute, he seemed like the Jason Chen I'd grown up with. Then his face sobered a little and he seemed to give in to the curiosity I know he had to have been feeling since he found out I was alive. He hadn't asked any questions during our first meeting, and I'd been too upset about Canaan to volunteer anything.
"So, how'd you wind up..." He trailed off, waving a hand helplessly. "How'd you wind up with this special unit?"
I let out a breath, relieved he hadn't blurted out "Special Operation Group Omega" for all the world to hear.
"Our training ship came under attack during the Battle for Mars," I said. "That much of the official story is true. But ten of us, all Academy cadets---we were the only survivors---we managed to take out the Tahni who tried to board our ship."
"Holy shit," he said, eyes widening. "Did you have guns?"
"Not until we started taking theirs." I felt a rush of guilt I hadn't experienced in years and pushed it down angrily. "That was the first time I ever killed anyone. After, we got picked up by...your sort of people," I said obliquely. "They had a program they'd been sitting on, waiting for the right opportunity, and we were it. We were physically augmented."
"Bionics?" He asked, almost whispering, looking me up and down like he could spot them.
I chuckled at his expression, I couldn't help it.
"No, a lot more advanced than that. It was giving me more of what I already had, not replacing anything. They sank a shitload of money into us, gave us every bleeding edge tech toy they can't afford to give to the Joes on the line and sent us out to make life miserable for the other side." My smile faded a little as I thought about the things I'd done the last few years. "We were supposed to remind them that God might not be on their side after all."
"Did it work?" I looked at him sharply, but it seemed like an honest question, not sarcasm.
"If by 'work' you mean pissing them off a
nd making them desperate enough to try to find loopholes in their religion to fight us," I replied, shrugging, "then yeah. Maybe it worked too well."
"What happened at Demeter, really?" He gave me a dark, piercing look. "I have to know, Cal. It's been horrible there since..." He trailed off. "They've put DSI back in to stir things up, just because it can't get any worse. There's been non-stop guerrilla warfare, reprisals against civilians, wholesale executions." I saw him shudder slightly. "If that's what happens with Canaan..."
"Demeter was a goatfuck because everyone had to have a spoon in the stewpot," I said bitterly, kicking at the dirt with anger that still simmered after more than a year. "Krieger and his geniuses in Operations wanted the DSI, the Marines, Fleet, everyone in on the mission. Except we had no communications with each other, had no opportunity to rehearse, no room to revise the plan for conditions or to tell anyone else if we did. All it took was one little thing going wrong to send it all off the rails, and something always goes wrong, Jase."
"But it's just going to be you, Cal," he protested. He looked like he felt guilty, and I wondered if it was just for asking me to do this or if it was for talking me into going to the Academy in the first place.
"It'd be nice to have the whole team," I said. "But the Colonel was right about one thing: it would be stupid to risk all of us on a long shot like this." I pointed at his chest. "You are the key to this whole thing working. You have to make Colonel Murdock believe I can pull this off. Because if he doesn't convince Admiral Sato to back us up, I may as well just put a gun to my head right now and save us all a lot of effort."
"We have to set up the timing now," he reminded me. "That's not going to be any more flexible than it was on Demeter, is it?"
"You can't control every variable," I responded with a shrug. "It's this or we leave them all to the tender mercies of the Tahni Empire until we win this fucking war. If we win it," I amended under my breath. "It's 260 hours from here to Canaan. I'll need at least two weeks to recruit, arm and train a resistance. Let's double that because everything always takes longer and costs more, make it thirty standard days. So, if you can talk Murdock into it, we need the strike to happen no later than 980 hours after I leave." I snorted. "We'll be attacking during the Night. Hopefully that'll be an advantage."
Jason blinked at me, bemused. "You just did that in your head? Figured out what day it would be on Canaan?"
I half-grinned.
"Just one more tech toy from the Fleet," I explained, tapping my head. "Okay, so how long will it take you to get the weapons shipped to our hangar?"
“I'll probably need a couple days to arrange the shipment."
"Okay, that works," I said, nodding. "It’ll take me that long to set things up on my end. See if you can have the shipment delivered sixty hours from now. If you can't, contact me via the 'link and just give me a time you can have the stuff ready."
"I'll have it there," he promised. "Uh..." He stumbled for words and I waited patiently. "If you can, if you have a chance..."
I smiled, put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "If I can find your parents, I'll try to keep them safe."
"Thanks, Cal." He seemed embarrassed, but I wasn't sure if it was because he thought he was being selfish or if he thought it made him look like a kid.
“They took me in when my own parents kicked me out,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, they told me about that,” he said. “I’m kind of surprised you’re still ready to…” He trailed off, gesturing. “You know.”
I stood up, breathing in the thick, humid air. This place was ugly and scarred by the past, but I could see, here and there, where saplings were struggling through the rocky soil. Hope sprang eternal.
“Everything I’ve done since I went into the Academy,” I answered the question he didn’t want to ask, “has happened to me, Jason. The Thatcher, the Battle for Mars, getting recruited for this.” I waved a hand at my body to indicate the augments. “It’s all been choices that weren’t choices. But the last decision I made for myself was to go into the military, and I did it because I wanted to keep the people I loved safe.”
I smiled, offering him a hand. He took it and I pulled him to his feet.
"If this is the last choice I get to make,” I told Jason, “it's going to be for the same reason."
***
I heard the footsteps coming up behind me in the base armory, but I didn’t look up from where I was loading rounds into the outsized magazine of the plasma gun I had laying in front of me on the cleaning table. Since we’d encountered the Tahni cyborgs, Colonel Murdock had procured some of the most cutting edge experimental weapons the Space Fleet techs had to offer. Pulse carbines weren’t going to touch those things, but a shot from a plasma gun or an electron beamer would take one out. We thought.
“I thought you were still on leave,” Deke said.
I turned and nodded to him as he stepped through the open door to the work room. His lower leg was just a few days old but he wasn’t even limping. He was in uniform utility fatigues and there was no hint he’d been in a medical ward until yesterday, except maybe a couple new stress lines around his eyes.
“Looking good, Deke,” I said. “Everything feeling okay?” I nodded to his leg.
“Feels better than the one I left back on that mud-hole,” he replied with a shrug. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Technically I have a couple days left,” I admitted. “But I got tired of pretending to have fun, so I thought I’d head out to the live-fire range for a little bit.”
Deke looked at the tactical vest and shoulder bag full of loaded magazines, then back at me dubiously. “There ain’t gonna’ be a hell of a lot left of the range when you’re done with it,” he commented dryly.
“I got a lot of anger to work out,” I said with a shrug, sliding the last loaded magazine into the shoulder bag. Each of those rounds cost about as much as a whole pulse carbine, so a range session could cost quite a bit of taxpayer money.
“Is that what that loading crew was jamming into every nook and cranny of the Raven?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Anger?”
I kept my demeanor casual and unconcerned. “They’re probably just getting her ready for her next op.”
Shit. I'd been hoping to avoid Deke, just slide on into the Raven and be out of the atmosphere before anyone realized I wasn't authorized to take off. That was the awesome part about being so top secret: no one was ever sure what we were supposed to be doing.
Deke wasn't buying it, I could tell. He walked across the cleaning table from me, hands flat on its pitted, faded polymer surface, eyes boring into me.
"I know what's happening back on your homeworld," he said flatly, abandoning all pretense. "Colonel Murdock told me; he wanted me to try to help you deal with it."
I tried to keep my expression neutral, tried not to let my breath catch. It took a second before I felt ready to reply.
"So," I finally asked him, "how do you plan on helping me deal with it?"
He held my eyes for a long, tense moment, and I began to wonder if security was about to come in and arrest me. Or try to. Then his face twisted into a grin.
"Need a hand carrying anything?" He asked, and I felt a load lift off of my shoulders.
"I appreciate it," I told him. "But it's better if I do it myself. There'll be enough hell to pay after I..." I jerked my head towards the door. There were security monitors in here and just because nobody watching them would suspect I was doing anything unauthorized didn't mean they wouldn't review the recordings later. I didn't even want to use our neurolinks; I was sure they could access those communications remotely here on base if they needed to.
"Sure another gun wouldn't come in handy...at the range, I mean?" Deke asked pointedly. I actually considered that for a second; it would be really nice to have him along. It would be good to know there was someone I could count on when I got to Canaan. But it would also be selfish.
"This probably isn't going to end wel
l," I admitted to him, shaking my head. "I can't drag anyone else down with me." I smiled thinly. "Cover for me as long as you can, though."
He nodded, accepting my decision, and I felt some relief at that along with a little disappointment. I'd halfway hoped he'd argue me into it and I knew that was me being selfish again. He stuck out a hand and I shook it.
"You'll be okay," he told me, part a wish and part an order. "Remember the Thatcher. We kicked their asses there and we weren't even super-soldiers.” There was a slight catch in his voice, but he kept his grin confident. “We’re gonna’ win this fucking war together.”
“You bet your ass we are,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. I shouldered the plasma gun, grabbed the loaded magazines that weighed even more than the gun, and headed out of the armory, leaving Deke behind.
No one gave me a sideways look on the way to the Raven; one of the Boys walking through the corridors with heavy weapons wasn’t an uncommon sight. We hadn’t bothered concealing our hangar here on Inferno; there were too many military spacecraft going in and out for that to matter. So, the ships were hidden in plain sight, lined up side by side on an open, fusion-form landing pad like it was some gigantic used starship sales lot.
It was mid-morning and there were maintenance crews out, servicing the Nightshade and the Blackhawk, and I could see the loading jacks being pushed away from Raven; they must have just finished loading the guns. This was the easy part, I knew, the part no one would question. I walked up the ramp into the ship, past polymer crates of Gauss rifles secured to the deck with straps hooked into secure points in the utility bay all the way up to the overhead. I could barely open the equipment locker to stow the plasma gun, then had to squeeze sideways to get to the cockpit.
It felt strange falling into the pilot’s seat alone, without Deke in the next couch. It felt stranger still using the manual controls to warm up the reactor instead of letting the Raven’s AI do it, but I’d suppressed the computer’s higher functions. It was a stone bitch running the pre-takeoff checklist without Raven’s help, but she would ask questions I didn’t want to answer. By the time I’d run through everything, the display was telling me that the ship’s fusion reactor was primed for atmospheric thrust.