Venkdt shook his head again.
C H A P T E R 2 1
Name, Rank and Number
Elspeth had never interviewed a celebrity before. She had hardly interviewed anyone before. She had followed Bobby’s exploits on the streams during the war and had bought his book on the day of release. While she was too level-headed to be called a fan she was certainly in awe of Bobby Karjalainen and that added to her nervousness at the thought of interviewing him.
She was eighteen years old and looked even younger. She was worried Bobby would not take her seriously. She thought it important that the impression she made from the very beginning was one of maturity and seriousness. From everything she had seen and read it seemed like Bobby was quite a strong personality, and if she couldn’t approach him as an equal the interview would not work. It would end up as one of those bland press calls where the subject spouts a few meaningless words, glad simply to get their face on the screen. Elspeth didn’t want that. She wanted to get something unique.
From her research she was fairly sure that no one had thought of asking Bobby about his return to Mars and his relationship with his dying father. That would be interesting on its own, and it came with the possibility that Bobby might get emotional or defensive. Either way, it would make for compelling viewing. In order to put a strong figure like Bobby in that position she would have to establish herself as a solid presence in her own right. Someone like Bobby, she thought, wouldn’t be pushed into a corner by a gauche eighteen-year-old who didn’t really know what she was doing. It was absolutely vital that she cover that up; that she should appear calm, authoritative and used to dealing with powerful personalities. Although that was the exact opposite of the truth Elspeth believed she would be able to fake it.
She had rented a room at a local college. She wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Maybe it would play badly with her age, making it look like she was doing a school project or somesuch. But it was the only place she could afford. Her own home would make it look even more like a teenager’s project and it would be presumptuous to ask to do it at Bobby’s place, as well as giving him home advantage.
She arrived early and set up her equipment. She had borrowed a moderately good camera which she set up behind her right shoulder. She had arranged two chairs not quite facing each other, one for her and one for Bobby. She set up her old camera so it would be looking over Bobby’s shoulder at her. She planned to cut in shots of her asking questions, nodding and looking interested. She had seen this set-up many times on the more sober streams - the ones that covered politics, business and so forth - and she thought it seemed suitably serious. She shot some test of footage on each of the cameras, sat in each of the chairs, and she was happy with the results.
Bobby was late.
After ten minutes she started to wonder if he was coming at all. Should she send him a message reminding him, or would that seem desperate? Against her impulses she decided not to message him but to wait. She thought that would be what an old pro would do.
After twenty minutes she was starting to feel despondent. Her last message from Bobby had been over a week ago. He was probably busy with glamorous speaking engagements and had forgotten all about it. She started to feel that she had been a fool to have ever believed that she had landed an interview with Bobby Karjalainen. She felt a strange mixture of emotions; anxiety, disappointment and embarrassment. But underneath it all there was still a scintilla of undying hope: maybe Bobby Karjalainen will turn up.
At half an hour Elspeth was considering packing her kit away. She had only booked the room for an hour and it looked like she had been stood up. She sat in her interviewers chair and thought about what she might do with the rest of the day. Whatever she did would be overcast with the massive disappointment of having failed at this one thing she had been planning and looking forward to for weeks. It seemed like the only acceptable option she had would be to mope about all day, feeling sorry for herself. That seemed like a plan.
Bobby was already stepping into the room when he knocked on the open door. He bounded towards Elspeth without waiting for an invitation. “Hi, Bobby Karjalainen, you must be Elspeth Ross?”
“Yes,” said Elspeth, “it’s great to meet you in person at last.”
“Good to meet you too, Elspeth, you’re a little younger than I expected.”
Elspeth had to think fast to parry. “You look a little younger in the flesh, too,” she said.
“I’m late, I had some family business to attend to,” said Bobby. Elspeth noted that it was not an apology, merely an explanation. She expected that Bobby had never really had to apologise to anyone.
“It’s fine,” she lied. “Shall we get started right away? I know you must be busy and I really appreciate your making time for this.”
“Why not?” said Bobby. “Let’s do it.”
Elspeth gestured to the chairs. “If you sit there I’ll sit here and ask you a few questions. I was going to ask about the war, a little bit about your family history, and about your plans for the future. I’ve read your book so I’ll ask a little bit about that and maybe get you to expand a bit on some of the anecdotes from there, how does that sound?”
“All sounds fine to me,” said Bobby.
Elspeth hesitated. She was going to ask one more question before the interview and she wasn’t sure whether it would put her at a disadvantage or if it was even the sort of thing a professional interviewer would say. As much as she wanted to be a hard-hitting journalist there was no getting away from the fact that Elspeth was polite and considerate. She felt compelled to ask anyway, but as a further justification she told herself it might be a clever tactic, lulling Bobby into a false sense of security. “Are there any topics you would be unwilling to discuss?” she said, at the same time thinking she may have just shot herself in the foot.
Bobby paused for a second in thought. “I don’t think so,” he said casually. “If there’s anything I don’t want to say I just won’t say it,” he added with a shrug. “Shall we do it?”
Elspeth looked to her camera over Bobby’s shoulder. She tapped her comdev to set the camera on preset two, where it framed her head and shoulders. After her intro she would set it back to preset one, a longer shot favouring her but with the back of Bobby’s head and shoulder the foreground.
“I’m speaking today to Bobby Karjalainen, author of Return of the Warrior, veteran of World War IV and son of Hjälp Teknik CEO Jack Karjalainen. Bobby recounted his experience of war in his bestselling book and became something of a celebrity on the lecture circuit. Since he left the army he has toured Earth extensively, but has now returned to his home on Mars.”
She flipped the camera to preset one and turned to face Bobby. “Bobby, Return of the Warrior recounts the story of the Commander Program on Earth and your experiences with it. Could you tell us a little about that?”
“Well,” said Bobby, “the Commander Program was dreamt up a couple of years into World War IV. The idea was to return to an earlier sense of martial chivalry, which some felt had been lost, and also to give commanders in the field a greater sense of situational awareness that is simply not available to soldiers operating drones through IVR. I don’t think we were expecting the controversy we got. To many people it seemed totally unacceptable to be putting military personnel in harm’s way. But for most of human history, that’s how it was. People forget that. People now think of war as being fought by drones but even in World War III there were soldiers putting their lives at risk on the battlefield. Before the twenty-first century drones didn’t even exist; wars were fought between people, face-to-face. I think what’s happened is that over time we’ve lost track of that sort of thing. People expect wars to be sanitary and safe but the truth is that even in a modern war, a drone war, people get killed. We call it collateral damage or whatever, but people get killed.”
“And what was your role in the Commander Program?”
“I signed up for the program at the very beginning, befo
re there even was a program to speak of, so I was involved in setting up and testing the hardware, and developing tactics and organisational structures.”
“So you were quite heavily involved in shaping the program?”
“I was. We worked with some great designers from Helios Matériel Corporation and adapted existing drones so that they could take pilots. That turned out to be more complex than we thought it would be, so we had to redesign the command drones from the ground up. I was a test pilot for that, so I got input on the final designs.”
“Were you happy with the designs?”
“More than happy. Our concerns were listened to and the designers really worked with us to provide the sorts of machines we needed, and that would do the sorts of things we needed them to do. Once we had the hardware, of course, we had to move on to the harder task of developing tactics and training up the pilots to use them. I have to say, the volunteers we got for the Commander Program were absolutely first-class. I think it takes a particular type of person to be willing to walk on to a battlefield where the enemy will be trying to kill them, and the guys we got were terrific.”
“Where were you first deployed?”
“Well, initially, I had trouble getting out of instructing at the school. The program was so new we didn’t have enough instructors, so I was stuck training for eighteen months or so. But in the end they let me go. I told them that battlefield experience would make me an even better instructor, and though I don’t think they believed it, they let me go.”
“And you went to Pakistan?”
“I did.”
“Can you tell us about that?”
“Well, I think it’s pretty well-documented what went off over there. It’s all in my book.” Elspeth sensed this was one of the things that Bobby had in mind when he said if he didn’t want to say stuff he wouldn’t say it.
“And the Battle of Lahore?”
“Yes, I was at the Battle of Lahore.”
Elspeth guessed this would be a great place to leave a pause. Maybe Bobby would be compelled to fill the silence with something revelatory, but if not the pause itself would be dramatic. It seemed that Bobby wasn’t going to step in, so having given the pause enough time to do its job Elspeth continued.
“That must have had quite an effect on you.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Did it affect your faith in the Commander Program?”
Bobby thought. “It didn’t affect my faith in the program, but obviously an experience like that does, as you say, have an effect. We had all trained for war but nothing really prepares you for it. I served two tours at the start of the war as a drone pilot in Kentucky but I quickly found that physically being on the battlefield is another thing entirely. And of course, the loss of colleagues is something that . . .” He stopped, searching for words. “It’s something that is very difficult to deal with.”
Elspeth knew she was on delicate ground but was eliciting some great stuff. “Knowing what you know now, and with the experiences you had, would you still have championed and supported the Commander Program the way you did at the beginning?”
“Yes I would. We have a way of life and a way of doing things in the USAN that is worth defending. Our enemies deny their own citizens freedom. They are not free to practice their own religions, or to trade with each other, or to say what they want, or go where they want, or do they want. Half of Earth is shrouded under dark, intolerant, ignorant systems of government. Sometimes we forget that our way of life isn’t just the natural order of things. We live in a system that allows people to experience freedom of ideas and expression, and economic freedom. It’s this system that has brought us great wealth and great privilege. When you look at the other side and the misery and poverty they live in, brought about by their repressive and intolerant governments, I think it’s easy to see that it’s worth it to fight for what we have. I know that my fellow commanders who died on the battlefields of Lahore and elsewhere would have done that gladly rather than live under the darkness of the Asian Bloc.”
“Would you like to take a break?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay, what happened when the war was over?”
“Well, after Lahore I was shipped back to the States. I did some more instructing - mainly instructing the newer instructors - and then I was more or less pensioned off. It’s no secret that I was the poster boy for the army. I did some calls promoting the army and my book, and then I came home.”
“Why did you come back to Mars?”
“I came back because it’s my home.”
“Any other reasons?”
“I served the mother country when it called. I’d paid my dues, and it was time to come home.”
“Your father, Jack Karjalainen, is very ill, is that right?”
“Yes he is.”
“So you came back to be with him?”
“I’m able to spend some time with my father now I’m home, yes.”
“You touched on your family life a little in your book and it’s documented elsewhere that your relationship with your father hasn’t always been great. Has that improved since your return?”
“My father is very ill and as a sick old man he has a bit less fight in him than he used to. I guess I’m a bit older now too, so we’re getting along a bit better than we used to.”
“Is it true that your father more or less disowned you when you decided to leave for Earth and the USAN Army?”
Bobby shrugged. “‘Disowned’ may be a bit strong, but he certainly wasn’t happy.”
“He didn’t speak to you for a number of years, did he?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Your father’s political views are well known. When you left for Earth were you rebelling against him?”
“Not really. My father and me are different people. I guess we’re both quite headstrong, and where we have different views we just rubbed each other the wrong way. I didn’t go to Earth to spite my father, but I guess he might not have seen it that way.”
“Where do you fit into the family now? Will you continue to be part of the Karjalainen dynasty? A place at the family firm, perhaps?”
Bobby laughed. “No, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. But I’m on good terms with my family, and I’m happy to be back.”
“What will you do now?”
“I really don’t know. I don’t think my skills are likely to be needed here, and I have a little money from my army pension and the book, so I really don’t know. I guess I’ll just kick back and see what happens.”
“There’s one more thing I’d like to ask you before I let you go. The USAN ship Otus was recently destroyed, believed to be by an act of sabotage. What’s your opinion on that?”
“I’m not really well-placed to comment. All I know is what everyone else knows from the news aggregators. But it goes back to the point I made earlier - we have enemies who would be happy to destroy us and they will go to any lengths to do that. It’s very important we remember that everything we have, all the freedoms we have, were won for us at great cost by people who stood up to intimidation and fought back.”
“You don’t have any ideas as to who might have been behind the attack?”
“I don’t; I mean I do, but I would just be guessing like anyone else. I expect it would either be dissident factions in the Asian Bloc who disapprove of the terms of the armistice, or maybe one of the other non-aligned organisations - you know, terrorist groups and the like. Just because the war is over we can’t be complacent. There will always be people out there who will want to destroy us. It was terrible what happened to that ship. I knew some of the people who died.”
“President Cortes has intimated that the sabotage may have been green-lit from Mars, what do you think about that?”
“I think that’s very unlikely and it’s irresponsible of the president to be putting that idea out there. I know that Martians, even now, are amongst the most patr
iotic people of the USAN - maybe I should say people formerly of the USAN, but you know what I mean. I don’t think the people of Mars bear any grudge or ill will towards the people of Earth. I still feel a very strong kinship with the USAN and I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t. This independence mania will settle down very quickly and we’ll all get back to doing what we were doing. We’ll always have a very special relationship with the USAN. That will never change, I’m sure of it.”
As Bobby was finishing his last sentence Elspeth felt a rising panic. She’d framed her previous question as one last thing but she realised she had another ‘last thing’ to ask. Her mind raced. She thought she would be able to flip the order of the questions when she edited the piece later but she was worried about how it would sound to Bobby now. Maybe he wouldn’t notice? She nodded as he finished his answer and launched straight into the next question.
“You probably have more military experience, certainly battlefield experience, than any other person on Mars. In recent weeks we’ve seen the formation of the Martian Security Service, taking on the role previously occupied by the USAN Garrison. Have you been offered, or have you considered, taking up a role with the MSS?”
Bobby paused. “That’s something I haven’t thought about. I’ve been out of uniform for a while now and I’m enjoying it. But this independence thing? The way I see it, it’s a good thing for Mars and really, in the long term, probably a good thing for Earth too. I guess I would like to support that in any way I can, and as you say, I do have experience. I guess I’ll just wait for the call,” he said, smiling.
Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) Page 33