“Call it instinct if you want,” Black Bear said. “But, if they have computer-guided missiles, they should have been able to take my shuttle out with a single shot. They wanted me to return and tell you what I saw.”
Black Bear walked to a window and looked out at the human and feline soldiers scrambling around the base, making repairs to the electronics lost to the EMP.
“And what the Hell is the real significance of that nuke,” he wondered aloud. “The odds that we would just happen to visit them on a day they were preparing to launch a nuclear strike are so astronomical that they preclude any presumption of coincidence. There is some sort of connection between the two.”
He turned back toward Yuen.
“If you are to the point where you have made up your mind to fire a nuke at your enemy, you don’t flinch,” he said. “It also seems ludicrous to me they would defeat our defenses only to redirect the missile and detonate it in an area where it would cause minimal damage. Unless, they had a damned good reason for doing so.”
“What do your instincts tell you then,” Yuen asked.
“My best guess is that they are sending a message,” Black Bear replied. “I think they are trying to tell us they have the ability to wipe us off the face of this rock forever, but choose not to; at least for the present time. They are giving us a chance to talk.”
“That is a damned big logical leap to make,” Yuen replied. “It seems more likely to me the missile had a guidance failure and they are shitting themselves at this moment waiting for us to lob something back at them.”
“Then we’ve screwed ourselves even more by not obliging them, General,” Black Bear said.
“Do you honestly think the natives are trying to coerce us into a truce,” Yuen asked. “Why not just radio us and request to talk if they can tap into our scrambled communication channels?”
“It wouldn’t have been to their advantage to do so before now,” Black Bear replied. “Until the nuke, we would have demanded unconditional surrender. So far, we’ve been convinced we have the upper hand. I believe they meant to show us we’ve been incorrect in that assumption.”
“Again, Billy,” Yuen said. “It’s too early to draw any conclusions. You aren’t one hundred percent sure what you saw today. There could be any of a thousand different interpretations…”
Black Bear shook his head in frustration.
“With all due respect, General,” he said. “I earn my keep by watching what the other guy does and then making judgments about what he’s thinking or might do next. It’s my job to get inside his head, and if I do say so, myself, I’ve become goddamned good at it.”
Yuen conceded. Without direction from the benefactors, he was left to conquer Terra Nova on his own. He could ill afford to alienate Black Bear any more than he already had. Although the two were agreeing much less often of late, Black Bear had always carried out any orders that Yuen gave him.
“Okay then, Billy,” Yuen asked. “You’re sure of your interpretation of these events?”
“Almost certain, General,” Black Bear answered.
Yuen frowned at not being able to offer strong alternatives to Black Bear’s interpretation.
“Something else is scaring the shit out of me,” Black Bear said, hurriedly, as if he were afraid it would slip his mind. “We have been operating under the assumption the natives are unaware we have a base on New Australia.”
“That missile redirected itself to within a few hundred meters of the half-way point between New Phoenix and the compound before it detonated. It didn’t give any real indication its guidance was faulty, and we both know the odds are against it being a coincidence the missile would happen to explode prematurely at that exact location. The enemy chose those coordinates to give us something to consider.”
“Perhaps the option to negotiate,” Yuen finally admitted.
“Begging the General’s pardon,” Black Bear said. “Maybe Chamberlain was right all along?”
“I’m sure if we could find him, he’d be happy to say he told me so,” Yuen replied.
Thinking about Chamberlain stressed Yuen greatly. Almost a year ago, Chamberlain had broken out of his cell in the brig on the Ark, gathered some of his belongings and disappeared.
Movement between the Ark and the settlements had always been strictly regulated and monitored by personnel loyal to Yuen, so it wasn’t possible that Chamberlain could have gained passage to the surface without somebody in Yuen’s trust knowing it. Yuen had his suspicions of who might have helped Chamberlain make it to the surface, if indeed he was there, but couldn’t yet prove it.
“I’m sure that if Chamberlain is still alive he’ll hear about my epiphany soon enough,” Yuen said.
He looked for a palpable reaction to his comment. Black Bear didn’t flinch.
“If there isn’t anything else, Colonel Black Bear,” Yuen said. “You should probably be getting a crew ready to pilot that drone.”
“Yessir, General Yuen,” Black Bear replied. He saluted and made his way out the door.
Chapter 16
Black Bear stormed out of Yuen’s office and treaded heavily toward the shuttle hangar. He was still smarting from the general’s insinuation he was somehow involved in Chamberlain’s disappearance or, more precisely, withholding information about somebody who was.
Black Bear also had suspicions about one person who may have helped Chamberlain escape the Ark, but that was beside the point. She told him she had nothing to do with it, and Black Bear had no evidence to connect her to the disappearance so he refused to pursue the issue further.
John Chamberlain recruited Black Bear for the mission personally and considered him a friend once the two became acquainted. Likewise, Black Bear couldn’t deny he liked and respected Chamberlain. He agreed wholeheartedly with Chamberlain’s intentions and objectives for the mission. But, like Yuen and the rest of the people the benefactors had recruited to infiltrate the Ark’s personnel, he believed the mission was too important to leave in the hands of a civilian with no military experience.
Early on, Black Bear and many of the other operatives had been told that their mission was to advise and guide Chamberlain toward decisions that promoted the benefactors’ agenda. It wasn’t until the Ark left Earth that Black Bear found out the benefactors’ plans included supplanting Chamberlain as the leader and intentionally exterminating Terra Nova’s current inhabitants.
Black Bear had never really trusted the benefactors completely and before the events of this day he would have bid them good riddance in a heartbeat. He now found himself hoping for word from them before Yuen started improvising. The loss of guidance the benefactors supplied Yuen could not have come at a worse time.
Black Bear would have also given almost anything to know where Chamberlain was at that moment and apologize for not resisting Yuen and the benefactors more vehemently before things got to this point.
Black Bear bristled as he walked to the shuttle hangar. It was the first chance he had to actually think about losing his team in the raid on the Terra Novan city and he got angrier as he walked.
“They were only children, damn it. None of them was more than eleven years old,” he said aloud to himself as he stomped along. “When I was eleven, I was learning algebra, singing campfire songs and trying my damnedest to find out what the Hell my older sister’s friends looked like undressed; not fighting some bass-ackwards interplanetary ground war over a god-forsaken dust ball covered in fucking salt flats. There isn’t even a goddamned moon. What kind of decent planet to live on doesn’t have a moon?”
When Black Bear finally made it to the hangar and entered, he called to the chief flight mechanic.
“I need a Swift fitted for a drone mission in an hour,” he said. “There will be a minimal crew, but fill the bird completely full of fuel and arm it for air-to-air.”
The mechanic looked puzzled.
“Air-to-air on a drone mission, Colonel, Sir,” he asked. “Are you planning to shoot
it down? We usually array with close support weaponry and send in a second shuttle with a full crew for a drone mission. You’ll want to set a perimeter and have soldiers walk it…”
“Understood, Captain,” Black Bear interrupted. “I don’t know what to expect and I don’t have the option to send in one crew to pilot the drone and another shuttle with ground troops to escort.”
“I’ll have it ready for you in an hour, Colonel,” the flight mechanic replied. “But, if I may, Sir?”
“What is it, Captain,” he asked.
“At the cost of one of your air-to-air missiles, I can mount one of the auto-turrets and a full magazine. It would give you some defensive protection on the ground. And, if the crew didn’t run into ground troops, the turret would still put some gawd-awful big holes in anything that might come at you from the air.”
The colonel smiled.
“Make it happen,” he said. He then asked the mechanic, “Have you seen Black Leader or Bravo?”
The mechanic pointed toward the briefing room.
“That way, Sir,” he said.
Black Bear headed for the briefing room. Once inside he found Black Leader sitting at a desk by herself. She had been crying. She turned away to hide her face.
“I’m ready for the mission debriefing, Colonel,” she said. “Bravo went to the latrine. He should be back soon, Sir.”
“Have you forgotten it is protocol to stand and salute a higher-ranking officer when one enters the room, Major,” Black Bear asked, trying to be stern, but not completely succeeding. He loved every one of his feline commandos and losing Alpha’s team was especially hard on him.
He had to concede, however, it couldn’t be as hard on him as it was on Black Leader. She was the same year as Kilo, Foxtrot and Sierra. She had known them all her life.
Black Leader jumped to her feet. She did her best to collect herself and turned in the colonel’s direction. She stood at attention and saluted.
“Sorry Colonel, Sir,” she shouted. “It won’t happen again.”
Black Bear saluted her and said, “I’m sure it won’t, Major.”
He motioned for her to become at ease. He kept all the sternness he had the heart for in his expression and added, “There is also no crying in my unit, Major Black-Seven-Triple Five-November, although I could possibly be convinced to make an exception in this case.”
“Thank you, Sir,” November said.
“Don’t mention it, Major,” Black Bear told her. “If I allowed myself, I might be bawling out loud, right now.” He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.
Black Bear was one of the few colonists as tall and imposing as the felines. He pulled the distraught November to him and put her head down on his shoulder. She burst into tears again.
“Get it all out quickly, Major,” he told her as she sobbed heavily. “We have to get back to work, and soon.”
“They weren’t even supposed to come under fire,” November said between sobs. “We had plans to take a ground transport to the beach when our furlough came up next week.”
“I’m sorry, Major,” Black Bear told her. “But, the only thing one-hundred percent certain about war is people will die. As long as you fight, you will lose friends and family. I wish I could tell you that this was just a fluke and it will never happen again, but the truth is that Death and War are the best of friends. Where War goes, Death follows in lockstep. They are inseparable.”
Black Bear wanted to tell Black Leader he felt these deaths were particularly tragic, but he didn’t dare. His personal views had gotten him into enough trouble with Yuen. He could ill afford to let his anger cause him to speak too candidly.
In Black Bear’s opinion, the felines were little more than adolescent children and they were being forced to fight a war that was not theirs. He was also not convinced in the least the fact the felines were engineered to fight this war was a good reason for them to be involved, even though they had no reason to exist otherwise.
Although he disagreed with the felines being made to fight the war, especially at such a young age, it had been Black Bear’s responsibility to oversee the training of the whole feline army in everything from hand-to-hand combat to advanced weapons and tactics. He personally oversaw the complete training of any special ops teams.
He was conflicted about the situation he found himself in, but he chose to carry on with his duties. He argued the point vehemently, but had been unsuccessful in convincing Yuen and the colonist leadership they were sending children up against the natives, even though, physically they looked like adults.
Black Bear was by far the most qualified person to be training the felines and he thought about refusing to take the duties on as a ploy to force Yuen to give him his way. But, Yuen was impatient to proceed and threatened to allow one of the other officers to take over unless Black Bear relented. Black Bear decided he could best serve the felines by training them the best he could and making sure they were the most fully prepared for war they could possibly be.
November’s head was still on Black Bear’s shoulder when she asked, “Colonel, where are they now?”
The question stunned him. Black Bear had plenty of opinions about the afterlife and he had no problems accepting that the felines who died would have one. None of them had ever asked him about it, though.
Even though many of the colonists practiced some form of faith, by decree the felines were never included. Religion and Humanities were not part of the curriculum they were taught in school. Still, he thought the question was a valid one and he wasn’t afraid to answer.
“I’m not really sure,” Black Bear said thoughtfully. “I know that my grandfather would say they went to the place that all great warriors go after they die. A place where there are forests for hunting and waters for fishing. And, they will gather each night around an enormous campfire, watching the smoke climb into the clear, starry sky. There, they’ll discuss the day’s hunting and fishing and wait for the rest of us to arrive…” Black Bear smiled at the thought. It was his fondest hope that his grandfather was correct.
“My grandmother would have said they were martyred and went to be with the Lord of Hosts,” he continued. “There they will serve him forevermore by coming back to us in our thoughts, dreams and memories. He will allow their love and guidance to inspire us to be the best we can be in the hope that we will go to be with them after our present journey is over.”
November sniffed. She lifted her head to look the colonel in the eye.
“Do you think we will ever see them again, Sir,” she asked.
Black Bear’s heart sunk. He wanted to mourn this loss as badly as November. But he didn’t have the time. He needed to pull what was left of his unit together and go searching for the evidence needed to put the day’s insane events into perspective. If he ever had to demonstrate strength for the benefit of his troops, it was this moment. He looked back at November and fought the urge to break down in front of her.
“I believe we will see them again, Major,” Black Bear said. “And, soon enough. Although, it may seem like forever for some of us...”
Bravo entered the room and saw the major being held by the colonel.
“Sirs? If I’m interrupting something, I can come back later,” the surprised pilot said, stammering nervously.
“Nonsense, Lieutenant,” Black Bear said. “Get in here. We still have a lot of work to do.”
November stepped back and snapped to attention. Bravo followed suit.
“Yessir,” Bravo shouted nervously as he saluted. “And I didn’t see anything strange, Colonel, Sir.”
November could barely keep herself from giggling. Black Bear’s face reddened a bit. He started to talk, but laughed instead. Bravo shot panicky glances back and forth at the two. He was still at attention.
“That’s correct, Lieutenant,” Black Bear finally managed to say. “At ease.”
The two felines took chairs. Black Bear began filling them in on the plan to use a drone to try
and get a closer look at the damage the explosion might have done to the city.
“It’s been one Hell of a day,” he said. “I won’t order you to go, but I’m committed to command this mission, myself. November, I need an extra set of eyes, and I can’t imagine anyone else flying the drone but you, Bravo.”
“Count me in, Colonel,” Bravo said.
November didn’t hesitate.
“I want to go too, Sir,” she said.
Chapter 17
Bravo flew the heavily armed Swift toward the computer-selected coordinates. He kept the shuttle at around one hundred meters from the ground the whole distance so the ride was bumpy and, at times, a bit frightening.
Black Bear was deep in thought as he watched the sparse patches of vegetation and black rock that jutted up through the salty sand rush past his view port.
“The colonists should just find a way to repair the Ark’s propulsion system and get the Hell off this rock for good,” he said to himself. “The view is even more depressing down here than at cruising altitude.”
A warning from the navigation system flashed on Bravo’s heads up display telling him he was less than sixty seconds from the shuttle’s destination.
“Hold on. We’re going in,” he told the others and slowly dropped the power to the main propulsion engines while increasing the power to the vertical takeoff and landing thrusters.
As the shuttle slowed and went into a hover, Bravo asked, “Colonel Black Bear, Sir, do you want me to find some cover to set down in?”
“Negative, Lieutenant,” Black Bear replied. “I want us to have a full three-sixty sweep of the area. If anything approaches from any direction I want that turret to lock on and fire as soon as it breaks the horizon.”
“Copy that, Colonel,” Bravo said and promptly set the Swift on the surface.
Black Bear and November watched as Bravo took control of the drone. Black Bear ordered Bravo to keep the drone hovering between the city and the climbing primary sun while the crew retrieved all previous video, photos and active scan data.
Chamberlain's Folly (The Terra Nova Chronicles) Page 15