Soldier of Fortune (2nd ed)

by Kathleen McClure

  According to the scuttlebutt, Fehr had taken his third levels at Chandrasekhar University in Fuji before joining the Corps against his family’s wishes. He even carried a few books in his pack, and not the penny dreadfuls the enlisteds poured over but actual books; tomes covering everything from the astronomy of the Tycho/Nemesis system to ancient Earth politics to crystal origin theory.

  “Is he at least aware Fortune revolves around the suns?” Fehr asked, daring a glance behind, to where Walsingham had fallen back to walk alongside Sergeant Mulowa.

  The sergeant was currently holding forth on the merits of her crossbow vs. Walsie’s plasma rifle for distance accuracy.

  “I’ve never bothered to ask,” Gideon said, keeping half an ear behind (such discussions could get heated), while both eyes continued to skim over the landscape around them.

  Not that the plains held any surprises. Unless the enemy were disguised as that herd of mammoths, they were alone out here. Satisfied, he continued. “I wouldn’t worry, Lieutenant. Walsie may not be much for the big picture, but he can read a compass, field strip his rifle blindfolded, and smell a hostile two hundred meters off. He’s basic,” he repeated his earlier estimation, “but solid.”

  The younger man didn’t question Gideon’s judgment, though his expression showed some doubt. Which was fine. Gideon didn’t want a second who accepted everything his superior said as Apian Law.

  From what he’d seen of the lieutenant thus far, Fehr would take his superior’s opinion under consideration, observe Corpsman Walsingham, and make his own assessments as to the man’s worth.

  Much as Gideon had considered Fehr’s worth when he first requested assignment to the 12th. So far, the lieutenant’s performance gave him no reason to complain, and every reason to believe he’d soon earn a command of his own.

  In fact, Gideon suspected Fehr’s transfer request came from his prior commander’s tendency to hold on to a good officer, preferring to lose them to the enemy than to promotion.

  Wisely, Fehr preferred a different career track, and wanted it enough to break protocol by approaching Gideon directly about the transfer. That he was willing to think outside the hive was, for Gideon, the first mark in the young risto’s favor, and one of the reasons Gideon put his weight behind the transfer.

  For a time they continued on, each conversant with his own thoughts and, in Gideon’s case, a mental review of the region’s map. If Sgt. Mulowa’s reckoning was correct, and Nbo Mulowa’s reckoning was always correct, the company would be reaching the rendezvous point before end of day—their ninth since being pulled off a covert demolitions job in northern Midas.

  Only the past two days had been on foot. Prior to that, the 12th had been airlifted from the Midas border by the Atlas, a civilian cargo ‘ship conscripted for the purpose of the mission. The Atlas dropped the Dirties ninety klicks shy of Nasa’s border two days ago, with sealed orders that Gideon cracked open only after the Atlas took flight, and then summarily burned once read by himself and Lt. Fehr.

  “Is this usual?” Fehr had asked as the blackened paper curled in on itself.

  “No,” Gideon told him, “not the usual.”

  Which was saying something, given the Dirty Dozen tended to receive the bear dog’s share of oddball missions.

  Seen on paper, the company’s record could be read, depending on one’s point of view, as impressive, appalling, or just plain draco-shit crazy. But everyone agreed, Gideon’s Dirty Dozen got results.

  Like the time last year when Command needed an Adidas supply shipment destroyed, it was the 12th who were sent in to do the needful.

  It being the middle of December, however, Gideon decided at the last minute that the regiment could use those supplies, (winter campaigns being tough on the troops). So instead of destroying the target, he’d commandeered the thing and, with far more luck than skill, flown it back to Epsilon base, where he discovered exactly how difficult landing an airship could be.

  To be fair, as he later told a chuckling Dani, those particular barracks were near to collapse anyway.

  Shortly thereafter, he and the team, along with the newly transferred Lt. Fehr, exfiltrated a general’s wife who’d gotten herself left behind when the general’s regiment suddenly evac’d from their post at the Northeast front.

  Once the wife got home, the company was immediately shipped out to perform some carefully timed sabotage along the Hewlett border, and then again to safeguard a shipment of weapons’ grade crystal to their Stolichnayan allies, and then on a series of short recon missions in Adidas.

  One such mission had taken them well behind enemy lines—into Exxon province—where they intercepted a Coalition courier.

  This courier, who chose to commit suicide by drawing his sword on Fehr, turned out to be carrying intel from a Coalition spy inside the United Colonies, who went by the code name, Odile.

  It still rankled Gideon, how he’d been taken out of the loop before he could determine if this was a case of misinformation, meant to keep the UC forces chasing their own tails, or if this Odile person actually existed.

  Because it continued to nag at him during the rare moments the 12th spent back at base, Gideon poked around Corps Internal Operations, hoping for some word on the whole, Odile thing. As the discovering officer, Gideon reasoned, he should be read in on the investigation.

  CIOD disagreed, but that didn’t keep Gideon from continuing to poke.

  It was also in one of those rare moments on base that Gideon found a letter waiting, a thank-you note from Madame General Rand, the wife rescued by the 12th some weeks prior.

  The note, written on personalized, non-recycled paper, was scented with something spicy and subtle and, he thought, cunning.

  If a fragrance could be thought of as cunning, anyway.

  After a generic, “You're quite welcome” reply to the letter, he thought himself clear, but then another letter arrived, and another… and another.

  Bold as he might be in the field, Gideon’s courage faltered in the face of an unwanted admirer.

  Rather than deal with the unsought attention, he tossed the letters into the recycling bin and tried to forget their existence.

  In fact, Gideon did such a good job at forgetting, he was more than a little surprised when Madame General Rand herself appeared in his quarters one day (opening a door Gideon was certain he’d locked), to find Gideon engaged in a fairly intense reunion with Dani while her assigned ‘ship underwent repairs.

  Luckily for Gideon, both women possessed a decent sense of humor.

  Both also chided him for not responding honestly to Celia’s (Madame General Rand had a first name, even if Gideon refused to use it), letters in the first place, as that would have certainly cleared the matter up, once and for all.

  He then found himself sitting between the two of them over tea, feeling over-tall, and over-crude between the polished, aristocratic Celia Rand and the elegant, classically educated Dani.

  Not that the women paid him any mind. They were too busy bonding over Gideon’s many quirks and failings, though Celia agreed with Dani that his views on marriage and monogamy were more charming than repressive, which then set them off on the concept of how pre-Fortune social mores continued to thrive in modern times.

  The only thing that saved him was a teleph from Command, informing him of another assignment.

  By the time he was on his way out the door, the two women had moved on to dissecting his stubbornness, most lately displayed by Gideon’s need to inflict himself on Internal Operations and the search for Odile.

  That uncomfortable tea was the last Gideon heard of Celia Rand, and he and Dani had only seen each other one other time since, a hurried goodbye before he and his company hopped a scout ‘ship to the Midas border.

  It was shortly after they debarked from the scout that Gideon’s radio operator got another comm, telling them to hold for further orders. These new orders, bearing General Rand’s mark, were delivered by the Atlas, the same airship wh
ich then ferried the company to Nasa.

  As to said orders, the 12th was to meet up with one of Rand’s exploring officers.

  It was stated, in the mission specs now burned to ash, the officer bore information hinting at the true identity of Odile. Such information, of necessity, needed to be delivered in person lest Odile (whoever that was), came to learn they’d been discovered.

  In reality, Gideon couldn’t help but wonder if this assignment somehow came by way of General Rand’s wife.

  Appearances aside, maybe she harbored some ill will over Gideon’s fumbling rejection. Or maybe General Rand was more in tune with pre-Fortune views on monogamy than his wife believed.

  Gideon blinked, clearing the sweat from his eyes and convoluted thoughts from his brain.

  Far more likely, he told himself, the 12th got this job for the simple and thoroughly un-sinister reason that the Dirty Dozen got the job done.

  So why, he wondered, ducking a bee the size of his thumb, did he have the feeling someone had set their sights on the back of his neck?

  The uneasiness persisted for another two hours, easing only slightly when the company entered a forested apiary running along the edge of the Nasa escarpment, where Rand’s exploring officer was to join them.

  “Betsim,” Fehr swore as he looked over the edge of the cliff to the river valley far below.

  “Keepers,” Walsingham swallowed and eased away from the drop.

  “Mulowa,” Gideon called back to his sergeant, “set up camp. No fires. Carver.” He turned to the radio operator, who’d just come to a halt, her dark face shining with perspiration as she unseated her equipment (almost half her own size), which she carried with her day in and day out. “Set up your kit and listen for chatter. If there’s enemy movement anywhere near this little slice of heaven, I want to know about it. Lt. Fehr, set the watch and make sure everyone knows the EO’s password. Our man could be here anytime.”

  3

  2100 hours found Gideon in the prison’s gate yard, along with the handful of other souls granted parole that day.

  The suns had long since set, taking the life-draining heat with them, and leaving in its place a soul-sapping cold. Above the chill desert, the sky glimmered with optimistic stars, and a glow over the Eastern wall presaged the imminent appearance of Ma’at, the first of Fortune’s three moons to rise that night.

  The other soon-to-be-ex-cons stood scattered about the holding area, overtly or covertly adjusting civilian clothing not worn since the day of their arrival in the Barrens.

  Clothing, Gideon noted, which now hung loosely on bodies pared down by years of labor in the crystal fields, giving the impression of a company of scarecrows, awaiting field assignments.

  Of the other scarecrows present, Gideon knew only one, a grifter by the name of Horatio Alva. Horatio was something of an anomaly as, being both a first-time offender (which is to say, this was the first time he’d been caught), and a non-violent, he technically didn’t belong in Morton.

  Gideon had come to know Horatio after stepping between the grifter and one Pavel Escavilla (who absolutely did belong in Morton), when the latter thought the former was “looking at him, funny”.

  The resulting throw-down had earned Escavilla solitary and Gideon another trip to the infirmary.

  Horatio caught Gideon’s roving gaze and gave him a nod and a quirk of a smile. Gideon returned the nod.

  He didn’t know what it said that he felt more reassured by Horatio’s impending freedom than his own.

  “Is this all your kit?”

  He glanced to his left, surprisingly unsurprised to see General Satsuke at his side, apparently engrossed in studying his scant personal effects.

  “Didn’t have much, coming in.”

  Her eyes dropped to the pack at his feet, then rose to his right shoulder, where Elvis crouched on the scarred pauldron, his tail twined around Gideon’s upper arm, bisecting the twin suns of the Colonial infantry tooled into the leather. “I don’t imagine you had him coming in, either.”

  Gideon looked as well, giving the draco a habitual tickle under the chin. “Elvis came along two years ago,” he said, not elaborating further. He doubted Satsuke would care how Elvis had imprinted on him after Gideon (stupidly, Doc later told him while administering the anti-venom) put himself between the draco hatchling and a hungry desert viper.

  “Elvis,” he said, gesturing to Satsuke, “say hello to the general.”

  Elvis tilted his head up and bobbed it down, long enough to make it seem a genuine bow, before raising it up again with a low, trilling sound.

  Satsuke’s brow raised slightly, then she nodded back to the draco before returning her attention to the draco’s human. “You kept the coat,” she observed.

  “It’s a good coat,” he shrugged, but gently because of Elvis. “And, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s balls shriveling—it gets cold in the desert at night.”

  She favored him with a glare he felt certain was meant to mimic those desert nights. “I’d like a word in private.”

  She turned and strode towards a corner of the gate yard unoccupied by any but two Corps warrant officers.

  Gideon after a beat, followed.

  As he and Satsuke came near, her escort moved out of hearing range, but remained close enough to deal with Gideon, should he prove troublesome.

  Gideon wasn’t feeling troublesome; he was feeling curious. “So, I’m guessing it’s you I have to thank for…” He gestured to the gate, “… all this?”

  “Not me,” Satsuke said. “But it was my division that started the ball rolling.”

  Gideon said nothing, but the skepticism must have shown on his face.

  “That surprises you?”

  “I’m just trying to imagine a world where CIOD gives a comb about an infantry colonel convicted of treason,” he said, perversely pleased he could speak the word aloud and not choke on it.

  “And normally we wouldn’t,” she said shortly. “But one of my officers was chasing a ghost in the ranks—”

  Here she hesitated.

  “Ghost?” he prompted.

  “Odile.”

  Hearing the name, Gideon kept his expression as blank as a really blank thing.

  He had to because, as far as the Corps was concerned, Odile had been convicted and incarcerated six years ago, in the person of Colonel Gideon Quinn.

  “Exactly.” Satsuke sounded almost pleased as she responded to his silence. “A fool’s errand, and one I refused to authorize.”

  At which point Gideon couldn’t even pretend to hide his confusion. “Then, how…? I mean, why are you here?”

  “I refused to authorize an investigation into Odile at the time,” Satsuke clarified. “But as the months passed we became aware of a continued hostile presence within the Corps.”

  “Presence?”

  She grimaced, clearly unhappy. “Mission objectives leaked, research facilities sabotaged, mobile units attacked with enough precision to tell us the enemy knew where they could be found. A steady stream of intelligence was being broadcast to the enemy up to the moment the Peace Accords were signed last Quaitember.”

  “Sorry, I can’t take credit for it, this time. Been busy culling crystal for the past few years.”

  She gave him another of those “night in the desert” glares. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

  “But it’s so slimming.”

  “I can now understand why your records include a disciplinary packet the size of a mammoth’s leg.”

  “Misunderstandings, most of them.” He shrugged, causing Elvis to flutter, hissing. “Sorry.”

  “Can we at least attempt to stay on problem?” Satsuke asked.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure what the problem is,” he said, unable to hold back the exasperation. “The war is over, the good guys won, in spite of whatever ghosts you people think you have, so—why are you here? Why are we even having this conversation?”

  “I am here because, despite ser
ving a brutal sentence for treason against the United Colonies, you still consider us the good guys,” Satsuke told him. “And because, as my investigating officer pointed out, a man whose childhood home was destroyed by the Coalition, a man with over twelve years of service—a man who uncovered the existence of the spy designated Odile in the first place—is unlikely to be guilty of treason, no matter what he confessed, six years ago.”

  “Maybe that man was a lie,” Gideon suggested, oddly diverted by the conversation. “Maybe his life was a fiction. Maybe he didn’t uncover anything because he was laying a false trail that would lead anywhere but towards himself?”

  “He might have been,” she agreed. “In which case I’ve just made a terrible mistake by arranging this parole. Were you aware,” she added, “that General Rand has taken command of the Corps Tactical Division in Nike? A sinecure, you might think, since the war’s end, but Tac is still the hub from whence all military dispositions are determined.”

  Non-plussed by the non-sequitur, Gideon took a mental step back. “They don’t keep us apprised of Corps Command assignments down here.”

  “I shouldn’t think. Of course, given your history, I wouldn’t recommend looking him up,” she continued. “In fact, the reason I’m speaking to you at all is because I wished to confirm your understanding of the conditions of your parole.”

  “Conditions?” He frowned, going over the lengthy list he’d signed on exiting the warden’s chambers.

  Do not bear arms.

  Do not cross colonial borders without first being cleared by Colonial Security.

  Do not attempt to cross into foreign territories… a slew of do nots he eventually mentally compressed into Be nice and don’t rock any boats.

  “Can you be more specific?” he asked.

  “I am referring to the condition that, should you be seen so much as within spitting distance of General Jessup Rand, your parole will be immediately and permanently revoked.”

  His expression shifted, minutely.

  In response, her mouth quirked, also minutely.