An Uneasy Alliance: Book 4 of the Sentenced to War Series

by Chaney, J. N.

  Rev hadn’t even fired Pashu then, nor anytime after the Nightingale’s Song. And while Rev would swear that he didn’t want a fight to break out, in truth, he was bored. He was going a little stir crazy on the Takagahara despite it being the best Navy ride he’d ever had. Along with most of the troopers, he wouldn’t mind a little bit of excitement.

  But they only had three more weeks for anything else to happen. They had one remaining evolution on their schedule—a maintenance call at Jonnelle Pratt Station for a final washdown of gear before their return. Fox Company would have one day and night of liberty before it would be back to the home system.

  * * *

  “You get a hold of her?” Ting-a-ling asked from his rack as Rev entered their stateroom.

  Rev slipped off his boots and flopped on his own rack.

  “Nah. She’s at work.”

  “Not a good sign, my friend. Not a good sign at all.”

  “Like I said, she was at work. You know, like what normal people do instead of lying in their racks as their ship makes big circles in space.”

  “She’s always at work, hanging out with Ten, or whatever. This is what, your third try in a row where you’ve struck out?”

  “Like I said, she’s at work.”

  “And, like I said, that’s not a good sign.”

  Rev had been glad that Malaika had been at work and couldn’t take the call. If he was honest with himself, that could be the reason he chose right now to try and make the call, knowing she’d be at work. He wasn’t in the mood for the local gossip, and by leaving her a message, he’d done his boyfriend duty without having to put up with the actual conversation. That was OK for him to acknowledge to himself, but that didn’t mean he wanted anyone else to criticize her.

  “And I should be taking advice from you, after two divorces?” he snapped.

  Ting-a-ling slowly lowered the pad he was reading and looked over it at Rev. “And that’s exactly why you should be listening to me. Been there, done that.”

  Rev winced. He knew he’d just hit a nerve. Ting-a-ling didn’t particularly share a lot about his life, but Rev knew that the last divorce had hit him hard.

  “Sorry, man. That was a low blow,” he said.

  Ting-a-ling shrugged and said, “It is what it is.” He raised his pad to start reading again.

  Rev watched him for a moment, then asked, “Was it hard? With Rainy? I know you don’t like to say much about her, and you can tell me to go pound sand if you want.”

  Ting-a-ling lowered the pad again, and for a moment, Rev was sure that he was going to tell him to pound sand. Deservedly, so, too.

  But to his surprise, Ting-a-ling sighed and said, “Yeah. It was hard. And not like Xyntyl, I never saw it coming.”

  Xyntyl was his first wife, married when he was seventeen and divorced at eighteen a month after enlisting in the Host.

  Ting-a-ling was a very private person. Rev had known him for years, and he’d been living with him for the last five months, but he didn’t know much about his roommate, all things considered. But at this moment, for whatever reason, there was a crack in Ting-a-ling’s armor, and Rev wanted to take advantage of that.

  “What do you mean, you didn’t see it coming?”

  “I mean, all the signs were there, but I was blinded. I didn’t want to see the signs, I think.”

  Rev took a chance on pushing a little more. “What were the signs?”

  Ting-a-ling gave a sad laugh. “The usual suspects. Not being there when I called. Short conversations when we did connect. No passion when I did make it home.

  “People even warned me that something was up, but I couldn’t, or maybe I didn’t want to see the signs.” He looked up at Rev. “Do you use the term jody, or getting jodied in the Marines?”

  “Yeah,” Rev said, now sorry he asked.

  “Well, there you go. That last year, Rainy started to complain that the Host kept me away, that serving was driving a wedge between us. We couldn’t have a family if I was always gone. So, when she had her affair, guess who it was with?”

  “Someone in the Host?” Rev said, already knowing the answer.

  “You got it in one. A brown-master.”

  “Punch? What’s a brown-master equivalent?”

 

  Shit. An officer.

  “She didn’t want to give up the exchanges, the commissaries, and the Host life. But life is a lot more exciting in the upper spectrum,” Ting-a-ling said, a hint of sorrow in his voice. “She filed for divorce a week after I joined you on New Hope. Two months later, she was an upper spectrum wife.”

  “That sucks, man. I never knew you were going through that. You seemed so upbeat all the time.”

  “What was I going to do? Cry? She made her choice.”

  Rev took a moment to digest that. “Were you angry?”

  “Angry? No. Maybe. But like I just said, she made her choice. And I loved her. Love her still, I guess. If this is what makes her happy, then that’s what I want for her.” He paused, then added, “Her husband’s a saffron-master now, so she’s going right up the ladder with him.”

  “Punch?”

 

  Rev stared at the overhead for a long moment. He didn’t know if he would be so understanding if he were in the same situation. He’d always resented his biological father leaving him and his mother, and he thought that had probably embedded his feelings of family loyalty.

  Which is probably why I’m still with Malaika. I just can’t leave her.

  Unless there was something to what Ting-a-ling was saying. If she was drifting away . . .

  “So, you think that’s what’s happening with Mala?”

  “Ah, don’t mind me. I’m just getting too cynical in my old age.”

  “Yeah, right,” Rev said with a harrumph.

  “’Sides, if she left you and you were suddenly single, I’d have to tell you what happened on Barclay.”

  “You’re still holding that over me? Why don’t you just dish?”

  “It’s more fun this way, my friend. And you’re probably imagining something far more exciting than what really happened.”

  “I doubt that. I’m pretty naive about this kind of stuff, so I can’t imagine much. And I saw the four of you come back, so don’t tell me nothing happened.”

  “OK, I won’t tell you that.”

  Rev threw his pillow at Ting-a-ling.

  But the conversation didn’t stop there. For the next hour and a half, the two opened up to each other. Rev told Ting-a-ling about his family, his biological father leaving them, then his father coming into his life. He told him more about his augments and Pashu than he probably should have. He told him about Malaika, and he told him about Tomiko and how they’d parted.

  Ting-a-ling was equally open. Rev hadn’t realized that he’d come from such an impoverished background, one in which the Host was one of the few ways out. In that, they were more alike than Rev had thought. Rev was conscripted after a traffic violation, but Ting-a-ling was conscripted by his social status.

  Rev learned more about Ting-a-ling in those ninety minutes than he’d learned over all the time he’d known the man.

  As the talk started to die down, and sleep came a’calling, Rev said, “Ting, I’ve got to ask you something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I mean, you’ve told me about your life, but if I called your home and asked your sister ‘Is Ting there,’ she wouldn’t know who I was talking about.”

  “So?”

  “I mean, you’ve got your unpronounceable name. Tee-yurt . . . Tee-zin . . .”

  “Tjivyrtzlin.”

  “Yeah, that. And I sure the hell can’t say it even if I just heard you. So, when you first came and joined us, we all started calling you Ting-a-ling.”

  “And you’re giving me this history lesson why?”

  “Don’t you mind that we call you Ting-a-ling? Or Ting, for that matter?”

  “What does it matter?
I know who you mean.”

  “Well, it’s kinda . . . well, not very fierce sounding, I guess I could say. Like a kid’s bicycle bell.”

  “Yeah, I know. But unless I take offense, then what does that matter?”

  Rev wasn’t quite sure yet where he was going with this.

  “Well, Tee-yurt-whatever, that’s your surname, right?”

  “Right. And again, why?”

  “But your family and friends back on Saint Anna, they don’t call you by your last name.”

  “Is that a question?” Ting-a-ling asked.

  “What do they call you? I’ve known you for how many years? And I don’t know your first name. And I know you fries do have first names.”

  Ting-a-ling sat up in his rack and looked across the narrow stateroom at Rev.

  “Yes, I have a first name.”

  “Well, why have you let me call you Ting all this time?”

  “Like I said, if I know you’re talking to me, then what else matters?”

  Rev shook his head. “I’d like to know your first name. What your family and friends call you.”

  “You’re my friend, and you call me Ting.”

  Rev rolled his eyes in frustration. He wasn’t sure if Ting-a-ling was messing with him or if he just didn’t get the question.

  “Ting, what does your family call you?”

  Ting-a-ling looked at Rev for a moment, opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head. “Ting is fine. I don’t think you can pronounce my given name.”

  “Try me.”

  “Nah. And as enjoyable an evening as this has been, I’m going to catch some Z’s.”

  He flipped Rev’s pillow back to him, lay back, and turned off his rack light.

  Rev didn’t understand Ting-a-ling’s hesitancy. And he felt a little rejected, especially after getting so much closer to him. He lay back and turned off his light, leaving the stateroom in darkness.

  Oh, well, it’s his call.

  He closed his eyes, and Ting-a-ling said, “Bob.”

  “Bob what?” Rev asked, still feeling a little put-out.

  “Bob. Just Bob.”

  “And who is Bob?”

  “That’s my name. Bob.”

  Rev turned his light back up and sat up. “Bob? As in B-O-B, Bob?”

  “Yep.”

  Rev threw his pillow at Ting-a-ling with much more force than the first time.

  Ting-a-ling pushed it under his head and said, “I’m keeping this.”

  “Bob? Fucking Bob?”

  “Not the fucking part, at least not since Barclay. Just the Bob part.”

  “Then why the hell did you say I couldn’t pronounce it?” Rev asked. He said it again in his mind, trying to catch some nuance that he might be missing. But no. It was just Bob.

  “Well, you can’t pronounce something as simple as Tjivyrtzlin, so I don’t know what you yooties can or can’t pronounce.”

  This time, Ting-a-ling couldn’t hold it in. He brought Rev’s pillow to his face to muffle the laughter.

  OK, you got me.

  “You’re a jerk, Bob! And that’s what I’m calling you from here on out.”

  “That’s what my friends call me, so yeah, I guess it’s appropriate. But now that you know, how about turning off that light? Your friend Bob wants to catch some Zs.”

  24

  The D-4 agent looked up from her pad and stared at Rev, her eyes boring into his very soul. Rev shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d done nothing wrong, but he had a history with the directorate’s security division.

  At least he thought she was D-4. What else could she be?

  The moment he’d set foot back on Enceladus, before he’d even gotten back to his cell, his pad had lit up with the message to report to this nondescript room in a nondescript corridor in a nondescript section of Camp Reyes.

  Fox Company’s final two weeks on the Takagahara had been mostly uneventful. There had been a brief alert that had gotten everyone’s attention as they prepped for a possible mission, but whatever it was must have been taken care of through other means, and the ship proceeded to Jonnelle Pratt Station as scheduled.

  The Mezame Concordat sprang for a huge party on the station, which was unexpected but greatly appreciated by the Fox troopers. They’d gotten close to the ship’s crew, and the party had been a good way to end the deployment.

  That warm and fuzzy feeling had lasted through the final passage and return to Enceladus, all the way up to Rev reading the flashing alert.

  Her silence was getting to him, and he opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand to shush him. At least that goaded her into action. She pulled out a wand, stood, and proceeded to scan the room.

  Rev frowned. Now he was sure she was D-4.

  Finally, she sat down. “Staff Sergeant Pelletier, I’m Special Agent Grenoble.”

  Yeah, D-4 for sure.

  Whatever this was, Rev hoped it wouldn’t take long. He was scheduled to take leave in five days, and another little stint as a “guest” of D-4 would destroy those plans.

  “Before we begin, please put your AI to sleep.”

  Rev didn’t like that. Why would he need to put Punch to sleep? His battle buddy couldn’t record events while on Enceladus, but to Rev, Punch was a security blanket.

  “Staff Sergeant Pelletier?”

  Rev considered refusing, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He may be attached to the Home Guard, but he was a Union Marine, and when it boiled down to it, the directorate controlled every aspect of his life.

  Reluctantly, he said, “Sleep.”

  The agent looked down at the same wand with which she scanned the room, then, with a satisfied look, raised her head again.

  She can tell if Punch is asleep?

  That was unsettling.

  “I’m here to conduct your triannual debrief.”

  That confused Rev for a moment before things fell into place, and his stress level dropped several notches. The stress didn’t completely disappear, however. This was D-4, after all. But he knew what was going on.

  Back on New Hope, before coming to the Home Guard, he and the others had gone through memory training so that they could note things about their fellow troopers. With their AIs’ capabilities limited, this was how the Union could gather data to develop into intel.

  To be frank, Rev had forgotten about the debriefs.

  “This is well beyond the four-month debrief window, but with you deployed, we had to adjust. This will constitute your first two debriefs.”

  She placed the wand on the table between them. Rev didn’t need her to tell him that this was all being recorded.

  “I hope that your tour so far has been rewarding and that you have acquitted yourself well. I know there was an incident with a Mad Dog karnan, and that has taken an interesting turn.”

  Rev raised his eyebrows at that. Of course, she’d know about Kvat and him. But the fact that she called them Mad Dogs somehow took a little of her D-4 mystique away. It made her more human.

  “We’ll discuss that, but for now, I just want you to relate to me some of your observations.”

  Rev tried to get his thoughts in order. He really hadn’t been expecting the debrief, and he hadn’t prepared a mental report.

  “Well, the karnans, they’re much stronger than us. I mean IBHU Marines,” he blurted out, not knowing what else to say.

  The agent didn’t sound impressed.

  Crap. Of course, they already know that.

  He took several deep breaths. One of the techniques they’d been taught was to associate observations with a class of objects, such as different birds, sports teams, or anything. For Rev, he’d chosen fruits.

  OK, Reverent, just do it.

  But for the moment, his mind was blank. He didn’t even know which fruit to use as a trigger. His thoughts bounced around his head like a songbird in a cage.

  Strawberry! Uh . . . strawberries are red, and Akkeke’s combat suit was red.

  “Uh, the
Millsap combat suit can change to any color,” he got out in a rush.

  The agent stared at him, her face an emotionless mask. Rev realized that wouldn’t be a revelation, but the dam was broken. Rev started going down his list of observations. To his surprise, the fruit thing seemed to work, and he thought he covered most of what he’d intended. It took about forty-five minutes to get through it, which was longer than he thought it would take. The agent interrupted a few times for clarification, but she mostly let him ramble on.

  When he couldn’t dredge up anything else, he said, “I guess that’s about it.”

  “Nothing more?”

  Rev had been feeling pretty proud of how much he’d retained, and that was a little bit of a downer. It wasn’t enough?

  She made some entries on her pad, then asked, “Do you remember AER from your brief back on your home planet?”

  “AER?” he asked, wracking his brain.

  “Applied Extractive Recovery.”

  “Uh . . . not really, ma’am.”

  “It’s nothing, really. Just a method that allows an interviewer to nudge a subject into retained memories.”

  Rev raised his guard. He vaguely remembered hearing the term. It was something like hypnotism.

  “So, what I’m going to do is administer a light sedative, and then we’re going to see what else you have for me.”

  She reached into her briefcase as Rev recoiled, pushing himself back from the table.

  “Isn’t a brainwipe illegal?” he asked, his eyes locked onto the small cylinder she pulled out.

  She actually laughed aloud. “What makes you think this is a brainwipe? You Marines, for people so brave in combat, you get frightened over the tiniest things.”

  “Then what is that?”

  “This? Like I said, this is a light sedative. You’ll breathe it in, and it will help calm you down. Makes it easier to find those memories.” When Rev didn’t look convinced, she said, “A brainwipe is done in a hospital setting with a large staff. Does this look like that?”