CHOP Line

by Henry V. O'Neil

  “The disaster was already in full swing by the time my unit arrived.” The hubbub subsided a bit, as heads inclined in his direction from across the different tables. “The Sims had fired the same mud-creating munitions that they used here, but in a much higher concentration. The size of the field expanded constantly for several days, consuming miles of ground. That territory was supposed to have firmed up again within hours, but it didn’t.”

  “What did it look like? We heard it was like a giant, never-ending tornado.”

  “That’s how it was at first. Above the mud zone there was this enormous cloud, filled with dirt and revolving slowly. The air all around it was filled with tiny particles of dust. We already had goggles on, it’s part of the gear, but they had to issue filter masks so we could breathe. Those got clogged up fast.”

  The entire room had gone silent, and Mortas sensed they were more interested in the environmental effect he’d witnessed than the military debacle that had almost destroyed the Orphan Brigade. Catching his eye, Erica subtly signaled that he should stand up. He rose and raised his voice.

  “I’m no expert on any of this, but I’ll tell you what I saw. My outfit was on one edge of the mud zone, up on rocky terrain that was unaffected. Late one night the ground started to tremble, and we thought it was an earthquake.” He paused. “In a way, I guess it was. Apparently the mud had chewed down so far that it opened up a pocket of gas or water or something, and the whole thing blew sky-high.”

  Elder Paul had folded his hands in front of him and rested his chin on them, his eyes fixed on Mortas. Looking over the other faces, Jander saw expressions ranging from academic interest to deep concern.

  “That eruption got rid of the tornado, but replaced it with a low-hanging, dirt-filled cloud that covered the whole region. Without the optics in our goggles, we wouldn’t have been able to see more than a few yards. Nothing could fly anymore, and even our short-duration surveillance drones were falling out of the sky almost as fast as we could put them up.”

  He stopped again, but for a different reason. So many of the Whisperers were of military age that it was hard not to see the faces of his troops among them. At one table near the back, one of the colonists could easily have been mistaken for Prevost’s brother. The earnest eyes of another reminded him of Ithaca. His platoon. Somewhere without him. Mortas cleared his throat.

  “Anyway, a tremendous amount of explosives got tossed around in that vicinity shortly after that, which blew the cloud away. The ground was still a giant mud field around a bottomless sinkhole.” The room seemed to dissolve around him, replaced by the disaster that had followed. Columns of Sim armor surging around the mud patch, stopped only by a hastily deployed minefield and volley after volley of missiles fired from orbit. The Sim infantry charging through the woods behind them, suffering and inflicting huge losses in an attempt to clear the high ground of the humans who were directing the deadly rockets.

  One of the colonists smiled at Jander, encouraging him to continue, but that only reminded him of Ladaglia. Always joking, always upbeat, until the deadly darts of a flechette round had caught him. Mortas looked at the ceiling, only to see the choking dragonflies dropping from the soot cloud, landing around the fire support man Daederus and his smashed legs. His throat constricted, and the seated colonists were now a blur. He placed his hand on his chair back, and then made eye contact with Varick.

  Wearing an expression of complete understanding, the Banshee captain raised a closed fist in front of her chest so that no one else saw it. It twitched minutely, clenched in support. The brown of her eyes pulled him in, and Mortas felt his throat relax just enough.

  “We got evacuated shortly after that. It’s my understanding that the mud field is still expanding, and that the atmosphere has been badly compromised.”

  Mortas wanted to sit down, but the faces seemed to be waiting for more and he was afraid to look at them. His eyes sought out Elder Paul, and the senior-most Whisperer came to his rescue. “Thank you for sharing that with us, Jan. I’m sure that wasn’t easy.”

  He gave the man an uncertain smile, and sat back down.

  “I’ve figured out the alien’s plan.” Varick came up to Jander outside, where he’d gone to get some air. The Whisperers had thrown a modest reception after dinner, and so Mortas had spent the last hour providing more detail for what he’d seen on Fractus. Retelling the story had grown tedious, and he’d slowly drifted away from the crowd. One side of the dome had been retracted, and so he’d walked out onto a stone patio that ended in the planet’s dirt.

  “And what would that be?” he asked in amusement. A small amount of alcohol had been provided at the reception, and it had clearly affected his partner.

  “It’s genius.” Erica stepped up next to him, looking back inside where the Whisperers were still mingling. “She’s going to keep asking us to meet her here, night after night, and never show up. She’s going to make us hang around with these people until we’re pacifists.”

  “Just think of how great a swimmer you’d become.”

  “Become? I’m already a great swimmer.” Varick leaned in, pressing her arm up against his. “Just a warning. I heard Elder Paul talking with Dru about having you tell the group about Gorman.”

  “I didn’t realize I was the evening’s featured speaker.”

  “You promised you would. Besides, you’re a good talker.”

  “It’s a family trait.”

  “Hey, you never know when it might come in handy. Let’s be optimistic for a moment, and say that this does end in a cease-fire. You’ll be out of a job, so you’ll have no choice but to use those Mortas connections. Become an ambassador. Talk for a living.”

  “My dad offered to make me the envoy to the Holy Whisper, after Twelfth Corps let me out of jail. I turned him down.”

  “Well that proves it. You really are a shithead.”

  “I proved that a long time ago.” He raised his eyebrows at her, and they both finished the sentence together. “When I joined the Force!”

  They both sagged against each other, chortling like fools but trying to hold it back. Jander put his arm around Erica’s shoulders, and felt her hand grasping the fabric of his shirt as the mirth ran through them. Temples touching, bodies wracked with near-convulsions, they still couldn’t hold it back.

  From inside the dome, several of the closest Whisperers turned to look outside when they heard the sounds of raucous laughter.

  “In the Human Defense Force, many of the combat units have a tradition.” Jander looked across the somber faces. He stood at the back of the dome on a slightly raised platform, his audience backlit by the star-filled night sky. “When we lose somebody, we get together and say a few words about them. It’s a way of celebrating their lives, and commemorating the impact they had on us.”

  He stopped to gauge the audience. So far the pacifists had shown no interest in hearing about his war experiences, or Varick’s, and he wanted to make sure they weren’t offended.

  “I only knew Roan Gorman for a few days. His last days. We were marooned right here.” Earlier chats with the colonists had indicated that they were fond of the alien whom they insisted on calling Amelia, and he now decided not to broach the topic of her betrayal. “He was an astronomer, a chartist in the fleet, and on the first night he stayed up and studied the stars. With no instruments at all, he determined where we were.”

  Several heads nodded, and he continued.

  “We all suffered enormously during that trek. We had no food, no weapons, and in the beginning we had no water. We walked for miles and miles, and Gorman’s feet blistered terribly but he didn’t complain. When the snakes surprised us at that first stream, he pulled both me and Corporal Cranther out of the way. He did things like that time and again, even though it put him in danger. He was cheerful the entire time, and he never once deviated from his principles.”

  The words came more easily, and the memories warmed him. Mortas set his gaze on the back of the audi
ence, and was rewarded with a smile when he found Varick.

  “You already know that we infiltrated the Sim colony by mixing in with a column of their walking wounded. That group eventually hitched a ride with a convoy that was hauling captured HDF vehicles, and we rode on one of those all the way into the base. There was an accident, and Gorman suffered severe internal injuries. Despite that, he helped us move one of the wrecks out of the way so that I could create a diversion. We hoped it would cover us as we crossed the runway and stole an enemy shuttle.

  “That diversion was a tank round that I fired into a Sim storage hangar. It exploded into a million pieces, and I believe that blast was what killed Gorman. I found him lying on the tarmac, and when we captured the shuttle he used his last strength to lock in the coordinates that took us to safety. He died shortly after that, reciting the prayer he had said over a dead Force soldier much earlier. We recited that prayer with him.”

  Jander’s gaze had shifted to the floor, and he avoided eye contact when he looked up. He scanned the back of the throng, trying to locate Varick again, but didn’t notice when he found her. His jaw tightened as he recognized the face of the alien, standing next to Erica. The Banshee had taken a step back, and was watching the Amelia-thing, but the creature was staring straight at Mortas. He imagined it was offended not to be mentioned, and decided he didn’t care what the thing was feeling.

  “I’ve soldiered with a lot of tough people in this war, but I have to say that the strongest individual I ever encountered was Roan Gorman. I’m a better man for having known him. I can’t thank you all enough for locating Corporal Cranther, and for giving those two men a resting place side by side. Like me, Cranther didn’t understand Gorman at first. Like me, he came to respect and admire him.

  “I’m going to stop talking now, except to say that I’ve eulogized far too many young men. I’m tired of burying the Tel Cranthers and the Roan Gormans and all the others. I speak for a lot of the people fighting this war when I say I will not miss it when it ends.”

  He was rewarded with a great many smiles and friendly nods. Elder Paul started moving toward him, no doubt to offer thanks for the address, but Mortas couldn’t pull his gaze from the back of the room. The alien made sure it had his attention, and then shut its blue eyes and bowed its head.

  “That was very well said, Jan.” The alien had waited until Mortas worked his way through the crowd. The Whisperers had been moved by his words, and several of them had asked him a few questions about Gorman and their ordeal. He’d kept checking on the thing’s location, and Varick’s, but neither one moved. Other Whisperers spoke to both of them, and his apprehension lessened when he saw the thing was never alone with Erica.

  “It’s not an easy story to tell, when I have to leave so much out.” There was no heat to the words, even though his suspicions hadn’t diminished. Mortas turned to Varick. “I do feel a lot better. I never got to say the words about either of them.”

  “It’s important to do that.” Erica’s earlier frivolity had vanished. “You can’t let go until you’ve properly said goodbye.”

  The Whisperers were drifting out of the room, obviously heading to their bunks, and so Jander motioned for the three of them to step outside. A chill had entered the air, but he walked them all the way out to the edge of the stone patio, trying not to limp. He looked back, making sure they were out of earshot.

  “Okay. I’m sick of being at your beck and call, so I want to know exactly what you expect from all this.”

  “I’ve been completely open the entire time. I would have thought you’d have detailed instructions from your superiors. What do you expect?”

  “We heard you chirp a little bird language, but you’re offering to serve as translator for the biggest negotiation in human history. How do we know you can speak to the Sims, or that they even know you’re here?”

  The face of Amelia Trent took on a bemused expression that could have been mockery or respect. “That’s very good. We’re on the same wavelength after all.”

  “Meaning?” Erica asked flatly.

  “I wasn’t playing games with you, being gone like that. I had to contact the ship that brought me here, and they had to relay my findings.”

  “A Sim ship? Near here?”

  “Near enough. It’s a warship, but a small one. Your planetary satellites wouldn’t detect it unless the commander wished otherwise. He’s ready to come down here, as proof that I can deliver what I promised.”

  “You’ve thought this all the way through, haven’t you?” Despite the accusation in the words, Mortas was already following the suggestion to its logical conclusion.

  “You really are going to have to start trusting me, Jan.” The Amelia-thing fixed him with an earnest expression that was hard to doubt. “Tomorrow, you’re going to become the first humans to ever talk to the Sims.”

  Chapter 14

  “I recruited the slave girl known as Emma, who was part of Horace Corlipso’s household staff.” On the screen, the orange-hued face of the Misty Man spoke in a monotone. “She resisted at first, and claimed she had always been treated well by the Corlipso family.”

  “Treated well.” Reena snorted the words from behind her desk at Unity. “She was the latest of his sex slaves, and he abused them abominably.”

  “He’s been drugged, and fed this story,” Leeger, watching the tape, commented quietly.

  “My immediate superior, Hugh Leeger, had kidnapped Emma’s family during the wedding of Olech Mortas and Reena Corlipso. I told Emma that her family would be murdered if she didn’t cooperate.”

  “I wonder why they’re not showing that he’s missing an arm,” Reena mused.

  “Probably concerned that it might look like he’d been tortured. They cleaned up the orange pallor as best they could, but all the rebels I saw looked like that. The dirt in the mines gets into the skin.”

  “I know what happens in the mines, Hugh.”

  “I trained Emma in the use of a stone knife I provided, one that she could smuggle into the Corlipso household. She was supposed to assassinate Horace Corlipso in his private chambers while serving him his dinner. However, he invited her out onto the balcony when he was receiving the congratulations of the Celestian people on the selection of his sister as head of the Emergency Senate.”

  “Laying it on thick, aren’t they? No one knows how Emma ended up on that balcony.”

  “I freely and openly confess my involvement in the murder of Horace Corlipso, and only offer one factor in mitigation. I was a paid operative of Reena Mortas, who ordered the assassination through Hugh Leeger. I am deeply sorry for the role I played in this brutal murder, and for all the suffering it has caused.”

  The scene cut to a park in Fortuna Aeternum that Reena recognized only from the surrounding buildings. The grass had all been trampled away, and none of the trees remained, but that made room for a set of gallows. The Misty Man stood on the platform, encased in a large canvas bag with straps that concealed his missing arm. Two Celestian military policemen stood behind him, and a voice boomed out of a loudspeaker.

  “For the murder of our beloved leader Horace Corlipso, a crime to which you have willingly confessed, you have been sentenced to death.” A third figure, draped all in black, stepped up and placed a noose around the Misty Man’s neck. As the hood went in place, the voice continued. “The sentence is carried out now, in the name of the people of Celestia.”

  The executioner stepped out of the frame, and then the flooring swung away. The Misty Man dropped out of sight, the thick rope giving a single, solid jerk and then going still.

  “I recognized that voice,” Reena said, shutting off the screen. “Damon Asterlit. Your counterpart in my father’s organization.”

  “I know who he is, but never heard him speak before. From what my people have learned, he’s the head of security in Fortuna Aeternum—which basically makes him the military governor. I hear that gallows gets a lot of use.”

  “The Misty Ma
n’s confession’s going to get a lot of use. How is the denial coming along?”

  “It’s been ready to go for some time. Heavy emphasis on his defection to the rebels, accusations of war crimes committed against civilians caught in the fighting . . . the usual lies.”

  “It won’t do any good. In a very short time, I’m going to be asked to appear before the Senate committee investigating the rebellion.” Reena shook her head. “Even more lies.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. I strongly suggest that you reconsider recognizing the rebels.”

  “We’ve been over this. No amount of political maneuvering can change what’s already happened. I made a call, and it went wrong. Now we’re stuck with it.”

  “With respect, ma’am, it didn’t all go wrong. The slaves have freed themselves.”

  “At the cost of thousands of lives—a tally that’s still running—and the removal of Celestia from the war. How do you suggest I claim that?”

  “We did something good here, despite our motives. You and the Chairman tolerated this crime, in the name of fighting the war, but neither of you liked it. Honestly, I think it was the biggest reason the Chairman undertook his last mission.”

  “And see where that got us.”

  “If this rebellion hadn’t occurred, someone was going to have to address this sin at some future date, probably not until well after the war ended. But we can do that right now. You can turn the tables on the Alliance members who are pretending they didn’t know that slavery was being practiced on Celestia. Some of them are the same people who’ve been putting the screws to you.”

  “That’s enough, Hugh.”

  “The HDF units on Celestia would welcome a cease-fire, ma’am. They signed on to fight the Sims, not to prop up a dirty bunch of fat cats.”

  “That’s enough!” Reena came to her feet, palms slapping the desktop. “You disobeyed my orders by going to Celestia. I put you in charge of the most important mission ever undertaken by humanity, and you used it to put yourself in the hands of my enemies.