I remarked that a week before there had been almost no personal cooperation between the Martians and us, but now Surgeon MacFinn was helping Medic Bashir from Syrtis treat the Political Officer Vo from Qinghai Mining.
In the search for the Sultan Mustafa, we had a common enemy. I emphasized the critical importance of joining the Imperium in this investigation.
These were all things to build on.
She did not buy the package. “Two doctors who know and like each other can work together, while dozens of assassins roam the city, killing at will. The officer that the two doctors are working to save is imprisoned under suspicion of treason. So are the crews of half the ships that escorted the Quetzalcoatl home. That ship, the flagship of the Lunar Recovery Hospital Service, has been gutted by factional riots amongst the patients and is going to be scrapped. The war fleets around us are filled with the allies and rivals of those hate-filled fanatics. The fifteen million people on the Moon are helpless hostages and the billions on the Earth are equally helpless cattle to be milked and slaughtered at the whim of enemy aliens. The TDF has demonstrated that it is spineless, helpless, and hopeless, incapable of defending anyone. As we speak, the supposedly peaceful Earth is being torn to bloody shreds by murderers, liars and tyrants.
“I woke up this morning nervous but willing to keep working. Your deposition has ripped away my illusions. If things are as bad as you say, if the Exterminators have driven the agenda all along, if the Sultan Mustafa organization has so easily infiltrated our most secure military and political organizations, we are doomed.”
She summarized her conclusions by staring at the wall and quietly saying, “shit,” over and over.
I reminded her of the one dream where things had ultimately worked out, telling her that we should not despair, no matter how dark the omens. The thread was fine but bright; there was still hope. The Earth was far more than Extraterrestrial Affairs, far kinder than the Exterminators, and could easily afford to help our fellow citizens recover. The Moon was the brightest gem of civilization that humanity had ever created. Time was short, but we could still prevail.
We sat in silence for a while. Finally, I asked, “Do you remember what it felt like the first day you put on that uniform?”
She glared at me, so I continued, “Feel that way again. Right now! You are a soldier and we are at war. Much of the fighting will be on a psychological battlefield and it is vital to keep it there whenever possible. Contempt, confusion, despair and apathy are the enemy’s weapons. You need to make a plan to fight them. The Exterminators controlled the battlefield while we didn’t know what they were doing. Now we do and can engage them with our own forces. I am a weapon, a judicial missile aimed at Mars. You are a psychological battleship, charged with defending the people of the Moon. Your people call, Officer Baintree. It is time to stand up and answer that call.”
Then she sighed and said she had a long night ahead preparing this report. She asked us to remain in the facility overnight, given the insecurity elsewhere. She would arrange dinner for us and would talk again in the morning.
2357-03-27 20:00
Dance Music
I woke the next day feeling hungry. Dinner had been difficult to arrange and breakfast was no better because neither I nor Sa’id knew what meds I should be taking in sufficient detail. They would not let us call Surgeon MacFinn or Doctor Toyami, in case the call alerted the Exterminators to our location. We finally decided on low doses of some basic muscle-building meds and general surgical recovery supplements. Everything tasted funny. I wondered whether I had been away from the Moon for too long or had just become used to the meds I was taking.
Sa’id ordered me a breakfast even smaller than usual because my thin stomach muscles might stretch or tear if I ate too much. Odd flavour or no, it required discipline to chew each bite properly before I swallowed.
The strip of muscle I had pulled while hugging Father Paul remained tender but did not actually hurt unless I stretched it again. I decided the embrace had been worth the risk.
Right after breakfast, Officer Baintree led me into a small office with a monitor on one wall and left me to answer an incoming call. It was Wang, whose opening line was, “Did you think I was just panicky about the risk of talking to the Political Officers? That was the most willfully blind, moronic thing I’ve ever seen you do! Was that two or three assassination attempts? Or was it a dozen, with the others halted by the lockdown? Did you really imagine that five guards could protect you from an army? Did you care at all about their lives? Did you realize that the entire Moon is running short of food? Or that the announcement of the Imperial Directorate of Commerce has been delayed again as they change venues, because of the lockdown and blackout that you triggered? Do you have any grip on the number of people who have been trapped away from food, water, and sanitation in those lockdowns, some of them for almost two days now? What in HELL did you think you were doing?”
After consideration, that was more than one line. Did I even want to address these questions? Maybe in general, not so much in detail.
“Admiral Wang, I cannot even begin to address such a barrage of questions before your other duties call you away, but Psychological Security Officer Baintree has been preparing a report on my activities that may answer some of them. I have passed to the Banshees a text summary of the most critical set of nightmares, the ones that have driven everyone mad, and I expect they have passed a copy to your office already. You may want to review them before reading Officer Baintree’s report if you have time. I have also passed to the Banshees a copy of the only dream I have found to date in which we survive this war. Not me personally, I must add, but humanity. I find it hopeful that there is a solution, but we need to do more than just react to events if we want to avoid the full conflict.
“Considering that threat, I took an initiative that would bring me vital information about real Belter people. I knew there were risks involved but it was far more important to improve our very small probability of survival. When you read the nightmares, you will understand perhaps the personal risk I consider acceptable in support of that goal. I have learned several key facts.
“First, if I can confess my crimes to a Lunar court that is broadcast to Mars, I will be addressing not just Mars but most of the Belt as well. That point alone justifies everything I did.
“Secondly, the group that I call the Exterminators was waiting for me. They had at least two teams ready to trigger the missions that would sterilize Mars and ultimately all of human space. I would very much like to know if a leak from inside the TDF alerted the Exterminators to my movements, or if they were just trying to sabotage the new Directorate of Commerce.
“I suspect there were several more teams that we did not encounter on the other approaches to Prosperity Square. The Exterminators always had good intelligence, so they must know that the Banshees assembled in Orientale Tereshkova. I expected to be attacked as soon as I started moving in public. They would not send an army for such a mission, so I was confident we would meet only small teams of assassins. I trusted Alexander’s code changes to protect me and I’m happy to report that they worked far better than I had expected. Our TDF guards were superb, as always.
“Thirdly, as you will read in Officer Baintree’s report, the Imperium is determined to disrupt the current leadership of the Exterminators, who I believe they refer to as Sultan Mustafa. Please note that ‘Sultan Mustafa’ is not an individual’s name, nor even a title. It is just the name of a role. For our own security, we need to help them in this effort.
“I expect one of our best resources will be the man I refer to as Father Paul, who has known them for over a decade. At least one more individual was shot in the service corridors immediately before I convinced Father Paul to trigger the lockdown. I suspect that a third team of assassins was closing in to kill Father Paul if he failed, to prevent him from talking. They were probably trapped by the lockdown and may be in custody already, looking as innocent as they can pretend to be. It wi
ll be challenging to keep Father Paul alive but should be well worth the effort.
“Finding and killing the current ‘Sultan Mustafa’ is apparently more critical to the Imperium than finding the Ghost. That must have been who they were seeking when Leilani and I encountered their security people on the Khrushchev. They apparently consider me to be their top candidate. If they had recognized us, we would have been executed on the spot, which is a measure of the threat they feel from the Sultan.
“I can continue if you like, but I suspect you will benefit more from reading Officer Baintree’s report, which should be passed to the Banshees as well. They need to know that background.”
Wang was not mollified. “If it is so important they know, why have you not told them before?”
I pasted on the fake smile, “Because I had not yet spoken to the Poloffs. I learned about the connection between the Exterminators and Sultan Mustafa yesterday.
“Two days ago, I feared the Exterminators, but they were a vague, disembodied threat, not people I had met recently. Now we have two of their agents in custody and at least one team of their commandos. This is intelligence treasure. To understand it, the Banshees need to know what I told Officer Baintree.
“Syrtis and TDF medical staff are doing surgery together on a wounded Qinghai Mining Poloff who volunteered to trade clothes with me to draw the assassins away from the crowd of people in the debate. Poloff Vo is a certifiable hero and one of the bravest men I know, certainly worthy of recognition.
“Poloff Vo, Surgeon MacFinn, Surgeon Kaahurangi and Medic Bashir are four utterly amazing people. They are implementing the plan for joint hospital services without asking for permission. Extraordinary and unbelievable by the standards of two weeks ago!
“I refuse to apologize for being a member of this species. We are extraordinary and we need to do extraordinary things. If we do not, then we deserve to die like the dinosaurs. They ate, slept and fornicated completely predictably until the rock fell that killed them all. We can do better. Tell the Banshees what they need to know and they will serve us all well.
“You know this. You are extraordinary yourself. May I ask a question?”
Wang stared at me through the monitor. He did not say anything, so I asked the question anyways. “How badly damaged was the Quetzalcoatl and why is LR intending to scrap it?”
He stared a few minutes more, then with great reluctance recognized how this question related to my diatribe. “It is too big. It was designed to rescue stricken liners, but this crisis, with patients from LUVN, the pirate ship, Valhalla, and the factional warships, is the first time that it has been fully occupied. In normal practice, they need smaller, lighter ships. Much the same reason that we have decided to invest in more FAS rather than battleships.
“And they are not intending to scrap it necessarily, just look for a buyer. The hull is strong, the engines in good repair, the control system up to date. The surgical theatres are becoming obsolete because they have been intending to mothball it for a couple of years. Half the patient wards have been destroyed, so the damaged parts have been removed and their materials are in recycling. The current negotiation is with the transport companies, who want to rip everything out and turn it into a liner. Those talks are not going well. I doubt much progress will be possible until hostilities are over.
“I really hate to ask this, but why do you want to know?”
My fake smile faded away and I felt the tug of a nascent plan. It felt like a glimmer of golden light, but I could still see only swirling doubts and uncertainty in the future. I really did not feel like there was anything to smile about, beyond being alive a day after rational expectation would have predicted my death.
“I don’t know yet. Even as a hulk, it is a resource. I just feel it might be important.
“Please don’t be too hard on Commander Sa’id and the guards. They performed even better than the highest standards of the TDF and all deserve commendations.”
Wang glowered at me, but said, “Damn, you are hard to hate. I have already told Commander Sa’id what I think of this little stunt and wouldn’t take back a single word of it, but I agree that the guards all deserve medals. It is their leadership that I worry about.”
We waited silently for a minute more, then agreed to speak again later and closed the connection.
I was left pondering our resources. The Quetzalcoatl was huge and expensive but available. So were the hulks of the Mao and Hammerhead. Everything in combat depended on resources.
I had a niggling thought from the Spacer, that I had resources saved for my retirement. What a joke. My retirement was going to be absolute and the only resource I would need was a few moments in the recycling centre. Assuming the Martians did not put my headless corpse on display. All my savings would revert to the state.
The Agent refused to let the thought die. I had ignored my retirement savings because I had known since I returned from Mars that I could never use them. Regardless, they were a resource I had carefully protected from confiscation by the state. I had never even told Leilani. I had had friends in my early career on Mars and more distant colleagues who trusted me. We had often pooled resources for large projects and long-term goals. Some of those resources still existed. I could not use them until I retired/died. It did not matter. Even if I wrote a new will, no one would honour it.
Puzzle pieces that did not quite fit together.
With only the wheelchair as a brace, exercise was challenging, but Sa’id and the guards gathered in my little room. All five guards were present, so they must have opened a corridor into Prosperity Square. The guards stripped down to tight-fitting loincloths and became a human exercise machine for me. It was like erotic dance in a confined space, with rippling muscles, bracing arms, thrusting legs, and swaying breasts, but done with precision movements that handed control of my pathetic limbs gently from one guard to the next.
Once or twice I caught them singing bits of popular tunes that helped our timing. They shushed each other when they realized that they were singing Banshee ballads to a Banshee. I told them finally to carry on, only to avoid the Rape of the Banshees, but then belayed that request and asked them specifically to sing the Rape.
It was circulating in three main versions, plus a few that were less popular. One was a rollicking, mindless spacer ballad celebrating a night of exuberant sex. Another tried to be more clinical. The third was harshly critical about confidence betrayed and a new crime as bad as any depravity in the history of sexual abuse. I hoped that the first version would be forgotten as soon as new sex songs were written, but I told them a few corrections that would improve the second and opined that the third was the only one worth remembering. The song was a warning and the abuse of power that led to the Manila Bay disaster was the content of that warning.
They worked on the Moon and knew very little about the Manila Bay. Beyond the fact that the ship had exploded, all the details were still classified as military secrets. There were no ballads that anyone was willing to sing in public. I worked silently for a few more minutes, then looked around at the walls, wondering how many eyes and ears were trained on us.
Finally, I threw caution in the recycler and began to tell them quietly and slowly about the Manila Bay. I used our Banshee nicknames where I knew them, sometimes asking Sa’id about the names most commonly used in the ballads. I told them of glue bugs and acid bugs, of a desperate call for help from a man glued by his boots to the outer hull of the dying ship, blinded as the bugs coated his helmet’s faceplate. I told them of tokens that locked doors and gave enemies control of armour, reactors and ships.
I told them of my own weak role, of chickens and snakes and hawks, wondering if any of them had ever seen those mythical beasts. I also told them of chickens running into their coop by themselves when left to their own good judgement.
When my tears started to flow I realized that the Cripple was fully in charge and I left him there.
I told them of heroes who volunta
rily entered the gates of hell to rescue the helpless. I told them of the hammering of fear and self-loathing that made the emoji attack so much worse than the Rape. I told of the horror they found inside, where the crew had been eaten alive in the hate-filled darkness by acid bugs. I told them of a courageous, honourable Captain, terrified into desperation, who determined to save the ship from our enemies by tying five warheads together and detonating them, knowing he could not escape.
I told them about the warning, barely in time, of the desperate evacuation, and of the Martian capture that saved the people in the broken transports. I told them of the survivors, mindless, ruined people who days before had been the TDF’s proudest and best. I told of compassion for the injured.
Especially, intertwined with the rest, I told of the love between the Knight and the Valkyrie that blossomed in defiance of that evil.
After I was done, I told them to remember my words because it was a tale that needed to be told after the classification had been lifted.
I set myself back to the Ghost and wondered again who else was listening. If they worried about my mental health, it was as good a tale as any to illustrate what we had been through. I supposed I could be charged with revealing state secrets, but I could not bring myself to care. I intended to do much worse in my confession.
I thanked the guards who had come through their own Manila Bay over the past two days. They shook their heads and demurred, “Nothing like that, Sir, just doing our jobs.” But they were wrong to be modest.
After another ten minutes of ever-changing routines, I realized these people knew precisely what they were doing, this was not improvised. When I asked, they told me they practiced this way all the time. My role was usually filled by a nominally hostile opponent whose moves had to be opposed. They swapped the role of opponent randomly every few minutes. In that game, they were faster and stronger, pushing until they risked injury. Most often, they had bruises and scrapes that needed attention by the time they were done.
Lord Banshee Lunatic (Nightmare Wars Book 3) Page 17