by Garon Whited
Kathy excelled at using people like pieces. She marched us down to the shop bay and I started handing out rudimentary weaponry—no fancy guards or handles, just sharp objects for everyone. We became squads in short order, each with our assigned sector and mission.
We all shared two objectives: kill rats, and drag Andrews into custody—alive.
It was a bloody, messy business, and I was thoroughly sick of it before we were done. It looked as though half of all the old people actively participated in the rebellion, talked into it by Andrews beforehand. How many more took up arms when it looked like he would win? I had no idea. The ones we captured either didn’t participate at all, or threw down their weapons and did their best to pretend they had been hiding in their rooms the whole time.
Kathy was true to her word. If it didn’t surrender instantly, it died. We cleaned out the roaming vermin, searched briefly through the rooms, cleaned out the recycling bay and messhall, and then started patrols of the hallways. Nobody reported any sign of Andrews, but there was a lot of space to cover.
While that was happening, Kathy and I went to the infirmary; the reports said the hatchway was sealed. Once we got close, Kathy radioed on the suit channels. Nobody answered.
“Maybe they don’t have suits?” I offered.
“Possibly.”
“Try the radios the Captain told us to wear,” I suggested. “They’ve got scramble settings.”
“Can’t,” she replied. “Mine’s in my locker. I use the suit radio when I’m in one.”
“So do I. Want me to go get one?” I asked as we rounded the corner to the hatch. We saw the door was welded closed. A long strip of the hatch and coaming had been fused together, rather than just a couple of tacked spots.
“No, thanks. I see they took a page out of our book,” she said, inspecting the hatch.
“Great minds think alike,” I noted. “Now all I need is someone with a great mind and I’ll try to think like him.”
“If it’s welded shut, they’ve been locked in,” Kathy observed. “Since the environment controls were in enemy hands…”
“I’m on it.” I fired up the minitorch and started cutting my way in.
“Start small, Max,” she advised. “We want to make sure they don’t stick a sword through before they know who it is.”
“Hopefully not after, either.”
I torched through the door and the molten metal bubbled toward me, out of the hole, which was unusual. I could hear a faint hissing sound as air pressure flowed out from the infirmary.
“If the air is shut down,” I noted, “shouldn’t the pressure still be equal?”
“I don’t know what’s happened,” Kathy admitted. “Keep going.”
I started on the welded section, setting the torch to cut instead of weld. Kathy undogged the hatch and kept a steady tension on it so it would open when I melted the last of the frame. It popped free at her pull and we held it open a couple of centimeters. Kathy slid her faceplate up to talk.
“Hello the infirmary!” Kathy shouted. “It’s Commander Edwards and Lieutenant-Commander Hardy!”
“Show yourself,” came the reply. Kathy nodded and I risked a quick peek through the opening. Two men were peering over a tipped-over examination table and both had captured crossbows aimed at me. They pointed their weapons up and rose when they recognized me.
“Sir!” one said, and they saluted. Another Marine stepped into view from the side, sword in hand, and saluted. I swung the hatch open and we stepped inside.
“Report,” Kathy ordered.
Captain Carl knew in advance about the plan to assassinate him, but the exact details and timing were sketchy. When the attempt went down, it was direct and to the point. A trio of assassins kicked open his office door and fired in unison at him. The only thing that went wrong was an unexpected quartet of Marines in the room; the rebels thought the Marines all went with Kathy. One of the four stepped in front of the Captain when the door came open, took the bolts for him, and dropped. When I heard that, I stopped even thinking they were anything but Marines.
The remaining Marines—and the Captain—drew titanium steel.
Sadly, the bad guys figured something might go wrong. While three guys tried to assassinate the Captain, a squad of six more were down the hall. When the swords came out, the assassins slammed the door and ran for it. When Captain Carl stuck his head into the hall to look, someone took a shot at him; the rest held their fire. He saw the situation, got a desk, and they used it as a shield to get out of the office. If they could get to an intersection of corridors and get some maneuvering room, rather than be trapped in a killing zone…
That might have worked; unfortunately, someone had already taken central control and was watching through the monitors. More bad guys were directed to cut off the Captain and his Marines. It was a good fight, though. Four of the bad guys went down—two under the Captain’s sword, one for each of the fighting Marines. (The other Marine was still pushing an upright desk as a shield.)
About that point, Captain Carl took a hit. The Marines liberated some crossbows from the corpses, returned fire to cover their retreat, and fell back to the infirmary. Once there, they found Anne and Sara tending to Julie. Hostiles had taken the recycling center about the same time the assassination attempt started. They captured her, but she escaped; the price was a crossbow bolt in her back. At least it wasn’t immediately life-threatening; she made it to the infirmary on her own.
Since then, the three Marines—one of them walking wounded—kept the door guarded. After two tries and as many dead, the bad guys gave it up and just sealed them in. After a while, the air stopped circulating, so Anne cracked a valve on one of the medical oxygen tanks. Sara cobbled together a bubbling contraption that captured some of the carbon dioxide from the air. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it kept them alive long enough.
“How is the Captain?” Kathy asked.
“Stable,” Anne replied. She looked tired, but beckoned us to follow. She spoke as we walked toward Julie’s recovery room. “I think he’ll live, but he shouldn’t be disturbed. When he’s stronger, I’ll give him Regenex doses to speed the process, but he’s doing as well as can be expected for his age. Julie should be all right too, but she won’t be up and around for at least a week. She’s being good about it.” She shot me a look. “Unlike some patients I’ve had.”
I did my best to look innocent. It’s not easy when you’re covered in someone else’s blood and holding a dripping-red sword.
Julie smiled as we came in. I’m distinctively large, so it’s easy to tell who is in the blood-streaked spacesuit. Besides, as Chang pointed out, it’s got my name on it. Julie looked pretty good for someone who spent an hour in surgery to get a sharp object taken out of her.
“So where do we stand?” Sara asked.
“We have most of the base back under control,” Kathy answered. “The majority of the habitat resident population is currently locked up, pending final resolution of the conflict. We’re still patrolling the base for anyone who hasn’t surrendered.”
“I heard them discussing the idea of holding the recycling bay hostage,” Julie offered.
“Really?” Kathy asked. “Funny, that. I had a report of some people threatening to blow it up.”
“What happened?”
“The squad that found them shot them and made sure everything in the bay was shut down.”
“Figures,” Julie sighed. “They don’t know enough about the hardware to realize it takes time to build up to a pressure explosion. I bet they missed some of the safeties, too.”
Kathy shrugged. “That’s their hard luck. We’ve got all the vital areas secured; all I’m worried about is lonely saboteurs lurking in an unused bathroom.”
“I say we shut off their water and weld them in,” Julie replied, and winked at me.
“Once we find them, maybe,” Kathy agreed.
“Any sign of Andrews?” Anne asked.
“Not so far
. We’ll lock everything down, then do a body count and roll call.”
“Good. I’d like words with him, please.” Anne looked not at all like a doctor at that moment. Kathy’s eyebrows rose.
“Oh? About?”
Anne met Kathy’s gaze. “What do you think? He ordered men to shoot Carl.”
Kathy looked thoughtful for several seconds. I noticed Anne didn’t call him “Captain.” I think Kathy noticed, too.
“You know he’s to be shipped back Earthside?” Kathy asked.
“I know. You can still do that when I’m done.”
“Alive,” Kathy added.
“All right.”
“Then it’s fine by me.”
“Speaking of being shipped back Earthside,” I interjected.
“Yes?” They both turned to me.
“Someone ought to go fetch Svetlana in.”
Chapter Twenty
“Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”
—Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)
Kathy, as our acting CO, started the base reorganization.
I got the Plumbers back on duty—short shifts while the off-duty ones put themselves inside a shower, outside a meal, and through a nap. That gave me a chance to go over the control room readouts and prioritize our search-and-repair needs. With the recycling bay damaged by morons trying to blow it up, Julie and I had to coordinate. I handed quite a few of the Plumbers to her with the injunction, “Build whatever she tells you to.” It would be a good learning experience to build or rebuild a SWOX unit, and redundancy is a good thing. Building a spare wouldn’t hurt us any.
One squad got detailed off to look for old-fashioned damage, including doors that were cut open or welded shut. Either way, the pressure doors needed to be repaired to vacuum standards. We also started letting people out and calling the roll of live citizens once we had the deaders sorted out and shoved aside.
In the course of this, we found Li. He was in a conference room, stretched out on a table, unconscious from a concussion. He was on duty in the control center when the rebellion started; one could say the blow that dropped him started it all. He was in bad shape. Apparently, they’d just hit him over the head, dragged him into that conference room, dumped him on the table, and left him. It was remarkable he was alive at all. Anne wouldn’t promise me he’d live.
Andrews had a lot to answer for. Li wasn’t just my subordinate; he was my friend.
Then it got worse.
Our roll call showed us three staffers that went over to the rebels; one of them was a former member of Julie’s crew and probably in charge of the environment controls. The others were a former food service tech and a fitness instructor.
There were three other people unaccounted for. Andrews, of course. Two more residents were missing, as well. I noticed the former Vice-President was alive and well, and behaving like a model citizen. Smart man.
Once we had ourselves organized, Kathy checked on the Captain. Anne was still cautiously optimistic, but the Captain was still napping.
“Is there any chance he’ll wake up soon?” Kathy asked.
“He could wake up any second,” Anne said. “There’s no real way to tell.”
“All right. Inform me the instant he’s awake.”
“I’ll tell Sara to tell you. If you don’t mind, I’m going to get some sleep.”
Kathy cocked her head. “How long have you been awake?”
“Going on,” Anne checked her watch, “forty… four? Six. Forty-six hours.”
“Tell Sara to take over the infirmary and hydroponics. Get some rack time.”
“Aye aye, Sir.” Anne trudged off to find a bunk. Trudging isn’t easy on the Moon.
We walked from the infirmary toward the Captain’s Office. Once inside, Kathy sat down at his desk and put her head in her hands.
“How does he do this, Max?”
“Very carefully,” I replied. “You were the XO. Weren’t you paying attention?” I started rubbing her shoulders.
“Yes. At least, I thought I was. But there are so many things… can we trust all the residents that just sat by and didn’t do anything? How many of them quit fighting as soon as we came in the door and did their best to blend in? How many of the staffers would have gone over to Andrews if he hadn’t distrusted them all? What sort of trouble is he still planning, and where the hell is he? Did Andrews plan any sabotage as a fail-safe? What is he doing now?”
“I don’t know the answers to any of those questions,” I told her, calmly, still working on her shoulders. Her muscles were like iron. “I would tell you if I knew, but Captain Carl probably didn’t know the answers, either.”
“Then how am I supposed to do this?” she demanded.
I almost told her that I didn’t know. But it hit me, right then, that my wife didn’t need a sympathetic husband right now. My commanding officer needed a competent executive officer.
“I think,” I said, slowly, choosing my words with care, “that Captain Carl just guessed. He took what he knew, reasoned what he could, and then guessed at the rest.”
“That’s a damned lousy way to run things!”
“I agree. But that’s part of the job. Guessing, and guessing right, is an important part of being in charge. We can’t know it all. If we knew everything, we could make the right decision every time. If we don’t know, we have to take a chance.”
Kathy sighed and put her head down on her forearms.
“And what do I do when I guess wrong?” she asked, softly.
“Live with it,” I said. “You guess wrong, people die, and you live with it.” I blinked, startled, as I realized something. “Just like Andrews. He led this rebellion, guessed he could succeed, and he’s going to have to live with it. That’s why Captain Carl doesn’t want to just kill him. That’s why he’s being sent back to Earth. Just killing him would be too quick. He’s going to have to live with the consequences of his actions.
“He didn’t realize how terrible those consequences would be,” I continued. “You do. If you trust someone else’s judgment better than your own, hand the job over. But you know just what this job is like, now. Who else would you trust to do it?”
“You,” she answered, instantly.
“Really? Max, the softie? Max, the nice guy? Max, who likes to believe the best in people?”
She hesitated, thinking it over. “But do we really need Kathy the killer in charge?”
“There’s something to that,” I admitted. “Remember, though, that while I’m not in charge, I am your executive officer and advisor. I can’t make the policy, but I’ll let you know what I think of it. Still, the decision—and the authority—are yours. Yours alone. I can’t share that. All I can do is be here for you when you make the wrong choice—not ‘if,’ but ‘when,’—and do my best to help you past that.”
The job of Captain is a horrible one. I have proof. Kathy turned in the chair, hugged me hard, and cried into my chest for a while. It was a fairly long while, but it had been a tough week for everybody. I rearranged us a bit; I sat in the chair and let her sit in my lap, still holding me while I held her. She eventually calmed down.
“I’m avoiding the issue,” she admitted, sniffling. I stroked her hair and said nothing. She continued, “I keep hoping Captain Carl will wake up and take over. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want this job. I don’t want to make a decision about the traitors because I’ve already made some wrong decisions and killed people we may need.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “You’re avoiding the issue. But I agree with all your decisions so far. No one has died through any fault of yours. They died because of their own decisions.”
“Max… it’s not fault that bothers me. It’s the fact we may need them. Each one had skills and knowledge that we might want someday. I have no way to know. Yet I ordered ‘no prisoners’ anyway. What will that cost us, later?”
“No telling. But would it have cost us more to let
them live and make trouble again?”
“Probably,” she admitted, and quirked a smile. “It’s funny to hear you talk like that. Am I rubbing off on you, Max?”
“No, that’s just your lipstick.” In response, she thumped me in the chest with her fist, then settled against me again.
“It’s fair, I guess,” she said. “You’re rubbing off on me. I worry more and more about how other people feel.”
“A good quality in a mother,” I agreed. “So what do you want me to do about finding Andrews?”
“I have no idea. But I know what Captain Carl would do.”
“Oh, good. What?”
“Order his XO to handle it.”
I blinked. She smiled a little, both amused and sad.
“So you want me to figure it out and deal with it?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes, please.”
“No problem, mon Capitan. I’ll look into it. Now, can we take off our officer hats for a minute?”
Kathy looked puzzled for a moment. “Sure… honey.”
I kissed her. She needed it, and so did I.
* * *
The things I do for my wife. We hadn’t been married a month, and already I was doing dirty jobs around the house.
The first order of business was to find Andrews. I organized nearly everyone for that; we swept the base, backwards and forward, to eyeball every nook and cranny. Twice.
I really expected that to work, but it didn’t. We didn’t find him or any of the other five missing people. Not even bodies.
So I checked with Julie. She told me there was no chance someone had fed them to the recycler. She showed me figures. I believed her.
Which left me with a dilemma. If they weren’t in the base, where were they?
Outside it, obviously.
“Tsien, report to me in Control.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
Forty seconds later, Ensign Tsien was saluting. I returned it and briefed him, going over the details of our patrol sweeps. When I finished, we looked at the floorplan map on the control room table.
“Tsien, we’ve swept the whole base. Our missing persons aren’t in it. What does that imply to you?”