by Marko Kloos
“Stores are topped off, but that ain’t saying much,” Colonel Campbell says over the orbital link from the Indy’s CIC. “This boat was never meant for extended deep-space operations. There are only so many ration boxes we can cram into our holds. We’re good for another month of ops, six weeks if we live lean.”
“Anything new on the Midway?” I ask. Next to me, Sergeant Fallon’s expression darkens at the mention of the carrier whose commanding officer decided to make a grab for New Svalbard’s civilian food infrastructure, then tucked tail and ran when it looked like the Lankies were about to wipe us off the ice moon altogether.
“Last we saw them, they were headed into deep space. Got a few long-range infrared blips on the scope over the last few days. I think they’re trying to make a very long dogleg back to the Alcubierre chute and get out of Fomalhaut,” Colonel Campbell replies. “Either way, I’m not terribly consumed with finding them.”
“Be a real fucking blast if they showed up again and started shooting at our new pals,” I say.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t really want ringside seats to that show, even if that one-star in charge of that bucket is a moron,” Sergeant Fallon chimes in. “There are a lot of people on the Midway that don’t need to be turned into stardust.”
“I don’t disagree with you on that one in the least,” Colonel Campbell says. “I wish them the best of luck in finding safe harbor somewhere.”
The ops center is staffed with a near-parity blend of military and civilian personnel. The colony’s regular team of administrators and technical-operations people is supplemented by myself, Master Sergeant Fallon, and one of the staff officers from Sergeant Fallon’s HD battalion, a Major Frederick. The command structure remains tentatively unorthodox—while the major outranks us both, there’s a common understanding that the master sergeant and her inner cadre are in charge down here, and the staff officers of both HD battalions are content to let her run the show in New Longyearbyen. Of course, Sergeant Fallon would rather be dodging bullets and crawling through ChemWar-contaminated mudholes than dealing with the minutiae of everyday military administration for a two-battalion-strong garrison.
“Weather conditions will be good enough for flight ops for maybe another twelve hours,” Major Frederick says. “The puddle jumpers are drop-and-go right now to rotate people in and out from the terraformers. No idea when we’ll get the next decent window in this frozen shit soup.”
“Let’s get as many people shuffled through as possible,” Sergeant Fallon says. “And any orbital business we have, best get it done in the next half day or so.”
There’s a holographic display on the wall that currently displays a slowly rotating sphere representing New Svalbard, the sole moon of Fomalhaut c, third planet in the vast and very empty Fomalhaut system. There are sixty-four evenly spaced icons dotting both hemispheres, each of them a state-of-the-art multibillion-dollar terraforming station, powerful fusion reactors with giant atmospheric exchange units attached. Each of them has a garrison platoon of Homeworld Defense troops assigned to it—partially for security reasons and partially because New Longyearbyen doesn’t have the infrastructure to support two battalions of soldiers. The terraforming stations have energy and space in abundance, but they are extremely isolated and don’t have much in the way of recreational opportunities, so Sergeant Fallon has set up a rotation schedule, which the harsh New Svalbard climate screws up on a regular basis.
“I’m passing along a request from Regulus Actual,” Colonel Campbell says. “The task force skippers want to have a meeting with all the COs to discuss our plans for getting back into the fight.”
“Back into the fight? I could have sworn we’re right in the middle of it,” I say.
“It’s no secret that our supply situation isn’t great. We sure as hell don’t have the resources to winter in this place, let alone spend the next year or two here and wait for the Lankies to come to us. Without a fleet yard for maintenance, half our hulls will be out of commission before too long anyway. Especially those SRA relics. Those people don’t put much emphasis on scheduled service intervals in ideal conditions. I don’t feel like towing one of those overarmed garbage scows to the Alcubierre chute and then back to Earth.”
“All the COs?” Major Frederick asks. “Theirs and ours?”
“Everyone,” Colonel Campbell replies. “Ground commanders, fleet skippers, SRA brass, and our little gang of plucky mutineers.”
“Festive,” I mutter. “We’re like a tiny, fucked-up United Nations now.”
“We can pass a unanimous resolution against Lanky invasion,” Sergeant Fallon says wryly. “Problem solved.”
Strategy meetings are usually hair-pulling affairs just across NAC service branches. The idea of a multibranch, multinational discussion between fleet capital ship commanders, ground pounders, rebellious Earthside garrison troops, and our equivalents from the bloc we’ve been at war with until just a month ago doesn’t fill me with glowing confidence of success. We’ll do well not to light off a localized World War V right here in orbit once everyone figures out just how many pairs of boots we have competing for just how few resources. We have water and reactor fuel to keep everyone running indefinitely, but there are no calories in ice and snow, and the hydroponic farms on the surface of New Svalbard are barely sufficient to feed the civvies, much less five thousand combat troops and another two thousand fleet personnel.
“Well, let’s schedule it,” the major says. “It’s not like we have much else to do right now.”
“But that better be a conference link in the ops center. No way I’m walking into a room with all those people sitting around one big table, spirit of cooperation or not,” Sergeant Fallon says. She leans back in her chair and stretches her biological leg with a grimace. “’Cause I don’t know about you people, but I am fucking sick and tired of this light indoor duty. I still don’t know what exactly I’m good for, but it ain’t answering comms requests and shuffling paperwork from behind a console.”
The strangeness of the day continues at 1800 hours Zulu, when we gather back in the ops center to participate in the conference link requested by the Regulus’s commanding officer, Colonel Aguilar. The holoscreen at the end of the room divides itself into ever-smaller segments to accommodate the camera feeds of the conference parties as they join the talk. By the time everyone’s in the link, there are twelve different heads looking back at us from the holoscreen. There’s the commander of the SI garrison at Camp Frostbite, Lieutenant Colonel Reddicker, the captains of every NAC ship in orbit, the commanding officers of both HD battalions on the moon, and the head of the SRA component of our task force, a hard-faced little Korean brigadier general named Park, who looks like he chews bulkheads for breakfast and shits rivets all day.
Colonel Aguilar begins once everyone has joined the link and indicated their readiness.
“The purpose of this meeting is to determine a course of action for the military forces of the Sino-Russian Alliance and North American Commonwealth jointly garrisoning the Fomalhaut system at present. Whatever decision we make at the conclusion of this meeting will be made jointly with input from all parties, both military and civilian.”
Colonel Aguilar pauses as people nod and voice assent. I am watching the SRA officers I can see in the lower right quadrant of the screen. The faces of the Korean brigadier and the staff officers sitting on either side of him are void of obvious emotions. Of all the nationalities that make up the SRA forces, the Chinese and Koreans would make the best poker players.
“If I may?” Sergeant Fallon asks the civilian administrator of New Svalbard, who is seated next to her. He nods, and she clears her throat.
“This moon cannot hold out for long,” she says. “I’m not just talking in terms of military firepower, although that’s an obvious truth either way you slice it. We have a powerful task force, but it’s not even close to what they threw against the Lankies at Mars and lost. But our limited military capabilities are not the biggest
fly in this particular soy patty. We are using food and other consumables much faster than we can replace them. Barring a change in the supply situation, we’ll be down to eating ration packaging and hull plating in another three months. Too many mouths to feed, not enough to feed them with.”
“We can take care of our own population, but we can’t keep that many troops fed at the same time,” the colony administrator says. “Our infrastructure isn’t at the point yet where we can sustain a few thousand extra people to keep fed.”
“How are the fleet stores looking?” Colonel Campbell asks.
“Oh, we still have rations,” Colonel Aguilar replies. “And we have spare parts to keep most of the drop ships flying for a while before we have to start cannibalizing units. But at this rate, and without any resupply, we’ll be out of sandwiches in ten, twelve weeks. I can’t imagine that our SRA friends are doing any better at this point.”
“Worse,” Brigadier Park says with just the barest hint of a smile. His English is good, hardly accented at all, and his diction as sharp and precise as the creases in his mottled camouflage jacket. “Minsk is an assault carrier, not a fleet carrier like your own Regulus. Much smaller, less space for sandwiches.” He smiles his tiny smile again at the last word. “Our supply ships have mostly ammunition for planetary assaults, not so much food.”
“Can you put that in a number?” Colonel Campbell asks.
“Three weeks, four perhaps,” Brigadier Park replies.
“Super,” Sergeant Fallon mutters. “Starvation or getting blown out of space. No winner in that bunch of picks.”
“If I had to choose just between those, I would much prefer perishing in battle,” Brigadier Park says. “But I suggest we find a way to avoid such a limited variety of options.”
“I’m with you there, General,” Colonel Aguilar says. “Question is, what do we do with all these ships and combat troops if we can’t go back the way we came?”
“We can’t go anywhere but the solar system,” Colonel Campbell says. “There’s no other transition point anywhere else in Fomalhaut. Light-hours and light-hours of Not a Damn Thing.”
“Our transition point isn’t safe. We already had half a dozen seed ships on our tail when we made it through on the way here, and God only knows why they didn’t just follow us through and finish the job. We go back that way, we’ll run right into the middle of a Lanky proximity bio-minefield. Or worse, six or ten seed ships loitering by the transition point to blow us to shreds as soon as we’re out of Alcubierre.”
“We can’t stand up to multiple seed ships with what we have, not even with Regulus,” Colonel Campbell concurs. “Forcing the blockade just isn’t an option. If we can sneak back into the solar system and get a whiff of things first, we’d have a better grasp on the situation. Maybe they stopped at Mars for now, and the fleet bases in the outer system are still there. The Titan anchorage has a full wartime supply stock. That’s a lot of food and ammo sitting in storage. Maybe there are even fleet remnants we can add to the task force.”
“That’s an awful lot of maybe,” Lieutenant Colonel Reddicker says. The stocky infantry officer crosses his arms in front of his chest and leans back in his chair. “We go back that way on the carrier, I’ll have almost two thousand grunts camped out on the flight deck, all helpless. They kill that carrier, those men are all going to die without ever getting the chance to fire a shot back at the enemy.”
“We will not load up all our troops and transition back blindly,” Colonel Aguilar replies. “We’ll send a recon team through first.”
“Through Alcubierre? You can’t shoot pods or drones through the network. Not without sticking your nose out the other end of the chute.”
“So we send one ship,” Brigadier Park says. “A small ship, with good sensors. Your little spy ship. It has stealth capability, does it not?”
If we were all in the same room, I have the feeling that all heads would be turning toward Colonel Campbell right now. He looks surprised for a moment and then shakes his head.
“Indy? Yes, she does, but that’s a no-go. I’m tasked with orbital defense by the colonial administrator. If I leave, nobody is covering for the HD grunts from above.”
“I’m fairly sure your ship is still an NAC Fleet Arm asset,” Colonel Aguilar says.
“And I’m fairly sure I have rank seniority,” Colonel Campbell replies. “But even if I didn’t, you folks are going to turn blue in the face if you’re going to hold your breath waiting for me to leave orbit without civilian authorization.”
Several of the other NAC officers chime in, and for a few moments, the conference feed is cluttered with a bunch of staff brass cross-talking in escalating volumes while the SRA officers watch the proceedings silently. Then the colony administrator speaks up, and the military officers fall silent as the tech who runs the feed mutes out their audio.
“Colonel, I do appreciate your willingness to adhere to Commonwealth law,” he says. “But if any of those warships decide to take on the colony, we’ll be dead meat with or without you.” He looks to a spot somewhere offscreen and then shakes his head slowly. “Look, if we don’t find a way for you to get back to the solar system, we’re all going to bite it anyway. Either when our supplies run out in a few months and we starve to death, or the Lankies show up and gas us all. From where I’m sitting, the best use for your ship is doing exactly what the general proposed, and scout a path for the rest of you all back to Earth. Or at least the outer solar system. You have my authorization to leave orbit and discontinue your current mission.”
Brigadier Park nods at the administrator, who returns the nod curtly. Colonel Campbell merely shrugs.
“Fine,” the colonel says when the tech restores his audio. “That’s settled, then. But I’m still not excited about transitioning back blindly. Even under stealth, they’ll shoot Indy to shards if they’re staking out the Alcubierre node. And you all wouldn’t know what happened until we were overdue a few weeks later. At which point you’ll have no options left other than a suicide run of your own. And I have to be honest, General: It bugs me to know that you SRA boys and girls will have no skin in the game.”
“I am not familiar with that idiom,” Brigadier Park says. “What does ‘skin in the game’ mean?”
“That means you are risking nothing in this operation,” Sergeant Fallon supplies.
Brigadier Park looks at the officer next to him and mutes the audio feed on his end. They engage in a short discussion. The general is as calm as he has been since he joined the feed, but whatever they’re discussing must make the other officer uncomfortable or upset, because his expression gradually turns from neutral to visibly perturbed. Then it looks like they come to some agreement as the other officer nods and lowers his gaze. Brigadier Park turns back toward the camera and turns his audio feed back on.
“We know that the enemy is aware of the Commonwealth’s transition point and is very likely guarding it from the other side,” he says. “But we cannot say for sure that the same is true for the transition point controlled by our own Alliance.”
“Are you volunteering to send one of your own ships through, then?” Colonel Aguilar asks.
The SRA general allows himself that tiny smile again, one corner of his mouth barely arching upward by a few millimeters. “No,” he says. “Your stealth ship will go. None of ours have the ability to stay hidden and conduct clandestine operations.”
He pauses for a heartbeat or two. “But we will volunteer the location of the Alliance’s transition point, and provide the access codes for successful passage.”
There’s a moment of shell-shocked silence at this, and then the comms tech has to cut everyone’s audio feed again as all the participants save the SRA officers burst into loud and animated discussion at the same time.
The colony administrator lets out a low whistle next to us.
Sergeant Fallon looks at me and raises an eyebrow. Then she folds her arms in front of her chest, leans back, and plops he
r artificial leg onto the console in front of her with a grunt.
“Well, well, well,” she says. “Isn’t this shaping up to be an interesting month.”
It takes a few moments for the general commotion to die down. Brigadier Park waits out the cross-talking discussion that follows. Finally, Colonel Aguilar takes the reins again and speaks up.
“You will hand us the coordinates of your Alcubierre point and the transition access codes? Just like that?”
Brigadier Park shakes his head. “Not precisely. We will share the location, but we will have to supply personnel to your ship that will be in control of the access codes. Regardless of our current situation, I do not believe that it is wise to give you a way to break our encryption protocols. We may not be at war with each other anymore, but we need to keep some of our secrets.”
He smiles curtly and addresses Colonel Campbell. “Does this satisfy you regarding the amount of skin we contribute to this game?”
Colonel Campbell nods slowly. “That’s a mighty big secret to give away, though. I don’t know if they’ll be happy with you back home if they learn that you gave away your number one military-intelligence nugget in Fomalhaut.”
“It is of small consequence,” Brigadier Park says. “Besides, it is—how does the idiom go—fair turnabout? We already know the location of your transition point, and we have in fact used it alongside your own ships. This way the scales are balanced.”
He almost-smiles again, the barest hint of amusement reflecting in the corner of his mouth briefly. “We need your ship to find a safe way back for us. If it does not, then we will all die soon, and there will be very little point in keeping military secrets. We will just have to make new ones if things change back to the old ways.”
“How much personnel do you wish to assign to this mission for Indianapolis?” Colonel Aguilar asks.
The general considers the question and confers with his staff officer briefly.