by Ivan Turner
Rollins continued. “One thing that I’ve been tracking is the Ghost attack. The ship that attacks the Valor has been different each time I’ve experienced this event. The only common factor among them is that there is always a Ghost attack. Every single time, a ship comes through the wormhole and you defeat it. Ask yourself this: If Ghosts are a people who exist outside the bounds of time, how is it that a ship, a different ship, appears in the same place at the same time in every iteration?”
“Are you expecting us to answer that question?” Tunsley scoffed.
Rollins shook his head. “Of course not. I can’t answer it myself, but it supports my theory even further. That variable is necessary for this operation, this particular set of events, to play out correctly. You defeat it every time and the captain delays the landing for twenty four hours. This has two major effects. In the first place, your landing always comes minutes before the Einstein arrives. Without a computer officer, Mr. Applegate is usually in computer control and he hides the landing, apparently much more effectively than I did.”
“What’s the second effect?”
“The wormhole, of course. The Ghosts use them to travel through time. When Walker launches the black box, it shoots into the wormhole and travels back in time almost to the point of the Einstein’s launch. Then it drifts for two hundred years until it eventually falls into the hands of the Admiralty.”
Boone rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. At no point during the conversation had he lowered his weapon. He was rigid, suspicious of Rollins and still worried that Tunsley was going to try and subdue him.
“So where does Tedesco fit in? Is she trying to rescue Walker? As much as I hate Ted Beckett, I find it hard to believe that he’s going to massacre the greatest explorers in the history of our planet.”
“He’s not,” Rollins agreed. “The Admiralty sent your soldiers to do it. Captain Beckett is off ship right now trying to prevent it.”
Of course.
“You knew that,” Rollins said. “You all know that. Maybe, then, this will convince you I’m telling the truth. Tedesco took Rodrigo and the infantry out to do the job. They’d have gone at first light, but instead they needed to head the captain off. Whatever it is that gets Beckett curious, it’s also what gets him killed.”
Hardy’s hands balled into tight fists.
“Beckett dies?” Boone asked, and his tone of voice did not necessarily represent sorrow.
Rollins nodded. “Every time. Rodrigo got him once. The other times it was MacDonald. From what I overheard on my last trip out, Walker got him. Ironic, don’t you think? Killed by the man you’re trying to save?”
“But he definitely dies,” Boone said. “Definitely.”
Rollins nodded again, looked down at his shoes. “Definitely.”
Boone took a deep breath and finally holstered his gun. “You said I take the deal. I always take the deal.”
“You always have.”
“Of course I do,” Boone said. “All I ever wanted was to get the hell off the Valor. Why wouldn’t I take the deal?”
Tunsley and Hardy were staring up at Boone expectantly while Rollins sat impassively in his chair.
“Not this time, though,” Boone said. “This time I’m the variable. This time I’m going to go out there and save the captain.”
Tunsley snorted again. “You expect us to trust you, Boone? You just said you hate the captain.”
“You bet I do,” Boone agreed. “But I hate Rodrigo even more.”
Battle of the Centuries
The trouble with facing off against his mentor was that she knew all of his tricks and he knew hers. Anything Beckett could think of, he had to assume Rodrigo could anticipate. Of course, the reverse was true as well. His one advantage was that she couldn’t know how far ahead his thinking had taken him. She would be ready to take on all four of them instead of just one. If he could use that to divide her attention, he might be able to…
She would go to the clearing where she had killed Cummings first. That would buy him some time. If he could get the two bodies into position, he might be able to fool her. With little time, he set to work on moving them. He found them cold and stiff and difficult to shift. He didn’t have time to position them well, but he had to do his best. And there was no time for respect.
The first thing he did was kick the loose portion of Danielle Smith’s head into the trees where it couldn’t be seen. Then he lifted her by the shoulders and dragged her over to cover. He’d have to block her top half but was already thinking that if she appeared to be hiding with an exposed foot, it could serve as a good distraction. The trees had no branches so he wasted precious seconds trying to prop her up behind one of the fernlike plants. The sound of the bike’s engine grew louder and louder as he worked. If he didn’t get the man under cover, the whole ploy would be blown. In the end, the job was inadequate but the best he could do. He rushed back into the clearing and grabbed the heavier body by the ankles. He was less careful in positioning him, but he was already out of time. Several yards away, the bike’s approach had halted. Beckett could hear the engine idling at the scene of Cummings’ death. He hesitated. It occurred to him that she would have no idea that he’d deduced the truth about Walker’s expedition. That meant that she might go on to the landing site, catching up Bonamo’s party. Preventing this was the reason Beckett had stayed behind in the first place.
“Anabelle!” he called out. It was better to call her out directly. Anything else would have been a transparent attempt at deception. She would have recognized it as a weakness and used it to her advantage.
The bike revved up almost instantly and began its approach once again. This time, though, it moved slowly, cautiously. He stood in the middle of the clearing, his weapon drawn and down. The bike appeared magically from within the trees and slowed to a halt. Rodrigo remained seated.
His best hope was that she didn’t recognize the area. He desperately wanted to draw her attention to his dummy soldiers hidden under cover, but knew that any such attempt would give away their true nature. In all of his years as a soldier and a captain, he had never faced anyone on these terms before. He felt as if he should be reassured by her appearance, the knowledge that they were enemies no more than a nagging feeling at the back of his mind. It was something he had to force himself to remember.
The darkness was complete now. The two took long seconds to size each other up while she waited for him to make the first accusation.
“You lied to me.”
“You don’t get it.”
“I’m not in on the joke.”
“Ted…”
“Are you going to kill me, too, Anabelle?”
She tensed visibly. Physical reaction to stress was not her style and it made him aware that the stress was severe. Like him, she would not have attempted so transparent a deception so he knew it was genuine.
“A good soldier follows orders,” she told him.
“Whose orders? Those corrupt old bastards back on Earth? You taught me how easy it is for old men to give orders from their war rooms but it was up to good soldiers to make the right decisions on the battlefield.”
“Good soldiers know how to survive,” she answered.
“You murdered Jason Cummings!”
The accusation came hard, but she had already steeled herself against it. “It was self defense. He fired first.”
“Sure,” Beckett agreed. “He knew what you were up to so he tried to take out your gun arm.”
“He didn’t know I had the laser on my left side,” she finished.
“This laser?” He threw it at her and it clanged off the front of the bike. The bounce took it further than expected and it skidded away into the darkness. She never even got a look at it. “What the fuck, Anabelle? Why would they send us to kill Walker instead of save him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “They didn’t tell me.”
“They didn’t tell you? Are you fucking joking?” If she didn’t kn
ow why then there must have been some other reason she’d accepted the mission. What could they have possibly done to her to force her into this role? He lifted his gun and pointed it directly at her. “Tell me,” he said.
“They’re doing a clean sweep, Ted. Merit doesn’t matter anymore, if it ever even did. They want a Space Force that they can control completely. People like you and me are dinosaurs.”
“So you get what? A promotion?”
She smiled a bit. “A promotion would be nice.”
For the first time in all the years he’d known her, Ted Beckett saw Anabelle Rodrigo as everything she didn’t want to be. She was vulnerable. She was old. She was a woman. Without the Space Force, she’d wind up as some rent-a-cop with a nightstick. For her that would be an unacceptable way of life. A good soldier knows how to survive. She was afraid of being put out to pasture. And without so much as a thank you.
Everybody has a price. Rodrigo’s should have been ten times or more.
But he still didn’t get it. He was as much a pariah as she. Maybe more. No one had tried to coerce him into playing this game. He had been sent out unaware. Why? He thought back to his meeting with John Poulle. The old bastard had known all along. His whole demeanor had been off. Even when he’d been short with Beckett, he’d been apologetic, as if he knew that he was sending him out on his last mission.
“You sold out,” he said through gritted teeth. “For nothing.”
“You might have also.”
“I doubt it, but I wasn’t given the opportunity. Why, Anabelle? Why test you and not me?”
She shook her head a little sadly. “I guess…” She looked up at him as if realizing for the first time just exactly what was happening. It was Beckett versus Rodrigo. The greatest fight of all time. Two would enter. One would leave. “I should never have had her, Ted. You should never have talked me into it.”
Stunned, he just stood there, staring at her. This was about Rebecca?
This was about her daughter?
Still, he was ready when she gunned the bike forward. Firing off a shot, he dived for cover. The shot never had a chance at hitting her. It ricocheted off of the front of the bike and that was closer than he had any right to hope for. What would have been really lucky is if she had been conned into thinking that someone else had fired. But she wasn’t. She sped past him as he used his own momentum to bring himself into the trees. Their soft, fernlike leaves provided visual cover, especially at night, but they would do little to deflect bullets should Rodrigo decide to open fire. He needed to find a position from which he could fight. Instincts told him to break right, so he broke left. Instincts told him to put some distance between them so he stuck close to the clearing. His instincts were his enemy as much as she. Rodrigo knew them all and could anticipate every single one.
He lost sight of her quickly, but the noise from the bike was telling. She had moved off a ways, but she would be back. Beckett lowered himself to the ground and tried to get a fix on her position. That bike gave her a physical advantage so unseating her should have been a priority. But, of course, she knew that so her defense would be arranged around it. It was a fool’s game of which cup has the poison? and he was the fool.
She was coming back. The buzz of the engine grew louder and he still couldn’t get a fix. In fact, the closer it came, the harder it was to spot. Soon she would be upon him. Her sweep would be fast and brutal. On the bike, she didn’t need to know where he was. All she needed to do was clip him at a decent speed and he’d be finished.
Finding himself near the body of the Danielle Smith, Beckett put on his light and stuffed it under her arm. The angle illuminated the clearing and he was giving away the plan of using the corpses as decoys. But if all fell properly, it would be worth it. Rodrigo was never going to go near that light. As she plunged back into the clearing, she caught sight of it and the blood sticky shoe that Beckett had left half visible. In the light it seemed ridiculous that anyone could have fallen for so transparent a ruse.
What the light did for Rodrigo was nothing. All she knew was that he had been there moments before. What it did for Beckett was priceless. It illuminated the clearing almost fully, throwing Rodrigo and her bike into the spotlight. Up until that moment, she had still been under the impression that it was four against one. She had left her rifle slung in favor of riding two handed. It would be easier to run people down than to try and shoot them. Beckett, meanwhile, had worked his way around to the other side of the clearing and gotten behind the other body. With all of his strength, he lurched the corpse out into the open, holding on behind and running with it. Rodrigo reacted, veering the bike and gunning the engine. Beckett released the body and sidestepped the attack, getting behind her as she bashed aside the man she’d killed hours before. At the same time, Beckett reached out with both hands and tore her from the bike. It swerved wildly and skidded to a halt just beyond the tree line.
Anabelle Rodrigo knew fighting tactics for all situations. Currently, she was unbalanced and held by a man with greater weight, greater strength, and lesser years. Her soldier’s brain ticked through her options one by one at a speed that would make a computer jealous. She had two or three tactics that she could use, but the one she liked best involved turning the tables. It involved a redistribution of her weight that would cause him to over-compensate the strength needed to hold her. In the end, she would pop out of his arms as easily as if she were coated with grease.
But, of course, Beckett knew this.
So he let go.
And Rodrigo lost her balance entirely and fell to the ground.
Now the advantage was completely his and he knew several ways to press it. She also knew this and knew several ways to counter any attempt he might make to press that advantage. But enough was enough and the time for subtlety had passed. Beckett moved in like a freight train, putting all of his weight forward and clenching his fists into miniature anvils. Rodrigo was strong and she could take punishment, but not what her good friend had in store for her. Avoiding her armored chest and not bothering with her vulnerable face, Beckett went straight for her wounded shoulder. There was an armored pad covering it, but it was no match for his fury. He tore it free with one hand and pressed her to the ground with the other. Powerless, Rodrigo watched as his first blow came down hard against the bandage. Lightning flashed in her mind as the pain crunched her shoulder, arm, and the right side of her torso. Blood exploded against the bandage, a dark blotch in the night. The sound that issued from her throat was nothing like she had ever heard herself utter.
But Beckett did not let up.
He hit her again and again until her arm was numb. All of a sudden Rodrigo was on the other end of a see-saw she’d been riding all of her life. She and panic made introductions to each other and she began to flail about. But even the adrenaline spitting into her blood stream could not fuel her enough to win this battle.
And still, Beckett did not let up.
When he was done, the shoulder was wet and useless. Though there was no damage to the bone, the muscle there would take months of rehabilitation to regain even a bit of its old strength. When he was done, he took his bloody hand and slapped his palm against her face as a show of disrespect. Another man might just have spit on her.
“Ted…” she murmured as he got up and stood away.
“Shut up!” he hissed and he turned his back on her. A few feet away, the air bike was still idling where it had stopped. He disentangled it from the leaves and mounted it carefully, checking to make sure there was no damage. Rodrigo’s rifle was still lashed to the side. Good. He would need it. Her blood was only the first he would spill.
Long Odds
With no real threat in the jungle and the instruments of the vehicles to guide them, the mutinous squad of foot soldiers pulled up at the Einstein’s landing site at almost the same time that Rodrigo reached Beckett’s location. The site of the ship was more than they’d expected. Even a jarhead like Knudson could appreciate the history
in front of his eyes.
The Einstein had the look of an old time space shuttle. It was long with a hooked nose and fins jutting out of the edges and top in the rear. There were black wings on the sides, pitted and marked from reentry. These old ships had originally been designed to blast off with rocket boosters and land on a runway. Once on the runway, the ship would have to be lifted into an upright position with new rocket boosters attached. But not the Einstein. That would not have done for planetary exploration. The designers had originally worked from schematics of the first moon lander. It was light and the design was efficient, but in real gravity, they didn’t think they could pull it off. The best bet was a shuttle, but the trick was getting the thing down without a runway and then off the ground again. There were books and books written on what they had done and much of the design had been used as inspiration to create ships like the Valor. There were landing struts on the underbelly of the ship. It had no wheels. For take-off, there were motorized legs folded into the rear of the ship. These legs would come out and lift the ship into the original upright position. Beyond that, it was just a matter of the proper mix of fuel and fuel consumption to get the ship off the ground and out of the atmosphere. No one ever believed it would work. They tested it with smaller models and then, eventually with the real thing and, wouldn’t you know it, it worked on the first try. That’s the thing about odds. The longer they are, the more things seem to tip against the balance.
As Bonamo and his reluctant followers approached the Einstein from exactly the same side as the mutinous squad, he was working on calculating his chances of success. He tried to analyze his options and make a cold decision but that decision kept leading him along a path he wasn’t sure he could follow. Negotiation seemed out of the picture. Rodrigo had killed Cummings. Given any tactical advantage, he was sure that Tedesco would order the infantry to do the same to him and his companions. A ploy at capturing them seemed ridiculous. Long odds was one thing. No odds was something else. They were outnumbered and outgunned. Even the element of surprise would not help with a capture. Tedesco would not surrender and trying to wound with sniper shots probably wouldn’t work because they’d still have access to their guns. That left assassination. If the three of them split up and shot to kill they’d probably be able to do enough damage to at least stall the operation.