Metal Legion Boxed Set 1

by C H Gideon

  But sitting there, curled up on a cot beside one of Fellows’ fancy bio-beds, it was hard to focus on anything but the unrelenting waves of nausea that swept over her. Each felt somehow worse than the last, and it was nearly all she could do to keep from whimpering between the twice-hourly retching sessions she had grown accustomed to.

  “Jesus, Captain, you look like dogshit that’s marinated in donkey piss for a week,” she heard Dr. Fellows say. “You should have let me knock you out for a few days until the worst of this passed.”

  She smiled weakly. “If you think I’d actually ask you to slip me one of your date rape drugs, you’re even stupider than you’re perverted.”

  Fellows laughed, lowering himself to sit on the foot of her cot. “You’ll be all right,” he assured her with what sounded like genuine sympathy as he gently patted her ankle. “Give it a couple more days, and your stomach lining will be good as new. You’ll probably be back on solid foods by the end of the week.”

  Xi propped herself up, careful not to let the puke bucket stray too far from her lap as she made eye contact with the doctor. “Your wife…Dr. Turney,” she began, fighting down the urge to burp since doing so might initiate another full-on retch-fest. “How did you meet?”

  Fellows cocked an eyebrow in surprise, “My, my…a polite question about my past? Don’t try telling me there’s an actual person under that double-thick layer of dragon-skin you wear around twenty-four-seven.”

  “Don’t deflect, Doc,” she urged, remembering what Sergeant Major Trapper had said to her back on Durgan’s Folly about letting her guard down more often.

  Fellows sighed. “I was working at a frontier clinic in New Africa. Do you know about the Gandel Plague?”

  Xi shook her head, having never heard about it.

  “It was a mess,” he grunted. “Some fucking parasite got dug up on one of the system’s colonial moons, and nobody learned about it until two months had gone by and the damned things started showing up on blood slides. By the time the New Africans knew what it was, it had already vectored a dozen virulent strains of the worst shit you could imagine throughout the system. Hemorrhagic fevers, drug-resistant encephalopathics, immunodeficiency strains…you name it, and it was sweeping from one side of the system to the other. Turns out the damned parasite had been coopted by an ex-governor-turned-terrorist named Gandel, which he loaded with every pathogen he could get his hands on before sending them out into the colonies. Three million people died in under two weeks,” he said reverently while his gaze fell to the floor.

  “Why haven’t I heard about this?” Xi asked in alarm, causing Fellows to scoff.

  “I knew you were young, but I didn’t think you were naïve,” the doctor chided. “New Africa’s various governments suppressed media outlets from reporting on the calamity, and eventually everyone in power agreed it would be best not to let the truth get out lest inter-system commerce suffer. New Africa grows a lot of specialty foods and the like, but a bio-plague scare would have cut them off from the rest of the Republic due to fear of contamination. So traffic was re-routed to relatively safe ports while the truth was essentially buried. But the aftermath was horrific, with tens of millions suffering debilitating injuries even after surviving the various diseases.”

  “You went there as part of the relief effort,” she said knowingly.

  He nodded. “I was a dumb kid, fresh out of med school with the wild-eyed notion that I could make a difference. In the medical community, we knew something was going on in New Africa that was bad, but no one knew the details. I decided that was where I would go and make my mark. I had only been there for a few weeks when I met Mia, and she introduced me to Sarah, Melissa, and Anne.”

  “Wait…” Xi interrupted. “Mia Turney and your other wives knew each other?”

  Fellows laughed. “That’s the only real way polygamy can work, Captain.”

  Xi sank back against the cot. “I admit I did not see that coming.” She gingerly sat back up. “Polygamy is illegal in New America.”

  “It is,” he agreed, “but it’s normally more of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy given the aggressive incentives surrounding procreation. And for twenty-eight years, we lived together, raised eighteen children, and did the things that all married folks do.” His mood suddenly darkened. “But when I spoke up about some of the things I’d seen in New Africa nearly three decades earlier, the government decided to make an example out of me for fear that others would do likewise. I was sentenced to sixty-one years in prison, ostensibly just for loving who I love and for supporting them to the best of my ability.” He shook his head angrily. “No one should be thrown in jail because they loved too many people, Captain.”

  Xi was completely taken aback. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected Dr. “Strange Bed” Fellows’ prison sentence to be related to marriage laws. He was such a competent surgeon that she always assumed he had killed someone through negligence, or while intoxicated, or that he had actually murdered someone using his advanced knowledge of human physiology.

  “So…what you’re saying,” Xi ventured after a lengthy silence, “is that you would never be satisfied by ruining the life of just one woman, so you had to go and marry four of them?”

  Fellows chuckled before standing from her cot. “That’s the long and the short of it, kid.”

  “Thank you,” she said awkwardly, “for…sharing.” She felt well enough to sit fully upright, and did so to better see Chief Lu in the bio-bed beside her. “Is he going to recover?”

  Fellows nodded with conviction. “There was enough left of his arm that he’ll need just three months of rehab to get back to full strength, and by then, the burns will heal as good as Podsy’s.”

  “When will he regain consciousness?” she asked, looking up and down the blood-tinged, medicated bandages wrapped tightly around his upper torso and head.

  “I’m keeping him sedated until after he’s transferred up to the Bonhoeffer,” Fellows replied.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Xi said just as another wave of nausea slammed into her, forcing her to double over and retch into the bucket.

  “Try to keep it off the walls…” Fellows muttered as he moved to the far side of the mobile hospital.

  In spite of the dry heaves wracking her body, Xi somehow managed to laugh at the doctor’s unflappable persona.

  “Captain?” Colonel Jenkins greeted from the foot of Lu’s bed.

  Captain Xi looked up from a bucket clenched between her legs. Her eyes were sunken and bloodshot, but she was just as alert as ever as she made to stand. “Colonel—”

  “As you were,” he insisted, and somewhat uncharacteristically, she complied without argument. She must feel like hell, he thought as he inclined his chin toward the unconscious Lu. “Dr. Fellows says he’ll be ready to transfer Lu to the Bonhoeffer with the next can, and he’s ordering you to accompany him.”

  Xi made a distasteful expression. “I’d like to argue the case for keeping me here, but I think it’s obvious I won’t be any good to anyone for the next few days. I’m just disappointed I left my mech in such a mess,” she said with seemingly sincere frustration.

  “Elvira’s already prepped and ready for retrieval,” he assured her. “You’ve done your part, Captain. Take the downtime while you can get it, because if my read is right, we’re going to be under fire again sooner than we’d like.”

  She straightened in her cot. “Another deployment, sir?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” He shook his head, pulling a nearby chair over and setting it down beside her.

  Xi nodded in silent comprehension. “I’m ready, sir.”

  Jenkins lowered his voice. “The general’s going to give us as much cover as possible, but some of us are going to end up in front of review boards. I won’t ask you to compromise your ethics or personal integrity..."

  “I’m onboard, Colonel,” she interrupted with a measure of conviction that Lee Jenkins doubted he had ever projected, let alone felt
. “We came here to do a job, and that job isn’t done until we’ve completed our extraction. I understand that going wheels-up off this rock isn’t the end of my deployment in relationship to this mission, sir. I’m not going to queer the deal by cracking under bright lights with the finish line in sight. And I fully understand that I might spend my next few birthdays in a cell if I don’t stay on my toes and play my cards right.”

  Jenkins was floored by this latest display of the young woman’s resolve and character. As he looked at her, disheveled and in pure agony from the effects of radiation poisoning, she displayed a measure of courage greater than anything he had ever seen in himself.

  He looked over at Chief Lu’s tightly-wrapped body, and it was that moment when he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that one day, perhaps very soon, she would assume command of the battalion. If anyone in the Terran Republic could lead the Metal Legion to the rosy future he had pitched to General Akinouye, it was the woman sitting in the cot beside her crippled crewmate.

  “This battalion is lucky to have you, Captain,” he said, meaning every word as he stood from the chair. He offered a salute, which she returned with a look of surprise before he said, “Now get some rest. That’s an order.”

  “Thank you, Colonel,” she acknowledged as he turned to leave.

  He was now more determined than ever to keep her out of the pending debriefings and “informal inquiries.” Not because he doubted her ability to handle them, but because he couldn’t risk the Legion’s finest young officer getting caught in the political gears so early in her career.

  She was the future of the Armor Corps, and protecting that future was now an objective he needed to keep in mind at all times.

  “One more thing, Colonel,” Xi Bao said, grabbing Jenkins’ arm before he could go. “Did we win?”

  “We won because the Jemmin lost and the Vorr lost. We won because our champion rivaled their champion. We won because you convinced the Zeen that we are their equals. Symmetry, Captain.”

  “I understand, Colonel Li,” Jenkins said two days later after learning details regarding Chief Warrant Officer Podsednik’s actions during the last engagement with the Jemmin. “I’m not arguing your authority to lock him in the brig.”

  “The man violated my ship’s data core integrity in the middle of combat with an enemy known for committing virtual takeovers,” Li said with finality. “He’s lucky I didn’t space him on the spot, Lieutenant Colonel Jenkins.”

  Jenkins knew he needed to tread lightly here, and if letting the full-bird colonel rub his nose in their rank differences avoided unnecessary conflict, then that’s precisely what he would do. “The logs clearly show, Colonel Li,” Jenkins continued evenly, “that the Jemmin were only revealed after Chief Podsednik introduced the antivirus to the Bonhoeffer’s computer core.”

  “Antivirus?” Li scoffed. “You call it whatever flowery word you like, but the book calls it an unauthorized attack on the integrity of my ship’s information-processing system.”

  “Unauthorized? Yes, absolutely,” Jenkins agreed. “But it’s not a ‘flowery’ word, Colonel Li. It’s an accurate descriptor, and we both know it.”

  “I don’t like your tone, Lieutenant Colonel Jenkins,” Li said with thin-lipped disdain.

  “The only reason Chief Podsednik’s program worked was that the Jemmin had already compromised your computer core, Colonel Li,” Jenkins said, his voice and visage unyielding. “Without Chief Podsednik’s efforts, it’s doubtful we would have bracketed that Poltergeist and knocked it off the board. The destruction of that Jemmin vehicle isn’t going to be glossed over in some round-filed report, Colonel.” Jenkins leaned intently toward the video pickup. “This entire engagement will be examined in excruciating detail for years—no, for decades—to come. And right now, you have an opportunity to become part of the narrative that arises from this important first clash with Jemmin forces.”

  Li sneered at Jenkins with open contempt. “Appealing to my vanity? You misjudged your mark, Colonel.”

  “Maybe…” Jenkins refused to back down. “But here’s the reality: your ship’s computer core was first compromised by the Jemmin, and Chief Podsednik discovered and neutralized that threat. Now, you are well within your rights to file a report which says that he acted without your knowledge and prior authorization, but I think you and I both know how that will look on your jacket. A ship commander whose data systems were violated not once but twice without his knowledge?” Jenkins shook his head piteously. “Not the kind of thing a promotion board will overlook, to say nothing of the formal inquiries we’re all about to face in the coming weeks and months.”

  Li’s sneer had largely melted away and was now replaced with a grim look of distaste. “Go ahead, Colonel,” he urged after Jenkins had let the silence linger. “Tell me what you think I should do instead.”

  “I think you should tell the truth,” Jenkins said, diving headfirst into a narrative that could very well land him in a cell right beside Podsy. “You should say that you tasked Chief Podsednik with an off-the-books project to secretly investigate whether or not the ship’s data core had been breached, following reports from the surface of sensor and targeting system failures. And you should say that he, working under your direct supervision and with General Akinouye’s approval, developed an antivirus which he deployed when it would provide maximum effect. Do I need to go on, Colonel?” he asked when it was clear the other man’s contentiousness had all but vanished at hearing the general’s name invoked.

  “The general’s approval?” Li repeated.

  “Absolutely,” Jenkins agreed, having received General Akinouye’s go-ahead in an effort to smooth things over with the aggrieved warship commander. He leaned back, careful to keep the triumph he felt from gracing his features. “This is your chance to write your name in the history books, Colonel Li—the first Terran commander to outflank the Jemmin. Not only did you shoot down one of their warships, but you overcame their previously-impenetrable sensor obfuscation techniques and helped clear an entire planet of their presence. Now you tell me—” He shrugged with forced indifference. “—is keeping one reprobate indefinitely confined to the brig for a simple misunderstanding really more valuable to your ship and its crew than having that same man attest and affirm the version of events which will catapult you and your people into the annals of history?”

  Li scowled. “You’re slipperier than a greased pig, Jenkins.”

  “Do I take that to mean you’ll be releasing Chief Podsednik after he’s cooled his heels for a few more days, with a formal demerit added to his file for sexual harassment against one of his shipmates?” Jenkins asked.

  “Sexual harassment?” Li rolled his eyes.

  “Everyone’s got a façade to protect,” Jenkins said with a light, hollow chuckle as he wore his best poker face.

  For a moment, Jenkins thought the other man would call his bluff and that he would not only be down a valuable member of the battalion, but that the inquiry into him would reveal that it was Styles, not Podsy, who had fashioned the anti-Jemmin program.

  It had been a minor miracle for General Akinouye to keep Styles out of Fleet’s hands following Durgan’s Folly, given the talented technician’s stunning success in overcoming the Arh’Kel mind-link system. But if word broke of a second, equally stunning maneuver under his belt in as many deployments, Jenkins knew there was no chance Styles would remain under his command.

  And frankly, without Styles, the battalion would have already died twice over. The battalion needed Styles at least as much as it needed Jenkins. And Styles wouldn’t survive the regular army.

  “Fine,” Li reluctantly agreed, “but that man will never again receive authorization to so much as flip a light switch aboard my ship. Is that clear, Colonel?” the century-old officer snapped.

  “As a Solarian’s conscience.” Jenkins nodded in agreement.

  Li gave him a withering look before cutting the line, and when the feed died, Jenkins exhaled
a sharp sigh of relief. So long as Podsy played his cards right, the battalion would remain intact long enough for Jenkins to face down what he expected would be yet another “informal” inquiry.

  19

  The Jemmin Conspiracy?

  Lee Jenkins sat outside the TRF Red Cliff’s main conference room, where he had waited for nearly two hours in total silence while the board of inquiry within reviewed after-action reports and other materials authorized for release by General Akinouye. The Red Cliff was 6th Fleet’s flagship and was one of the most decorated dreadnoughts in the entire fleet. It had been at the head of the flotilla that turned back the Arh’Kel before they could reach Durgan’s Folly, which said that Fleet wanted to keep Armor Corps’ performance under Colonel Jenkins compartmentalized while they reviewed the after-action reports.

  The general had redacted significant portions of the official report, which was his duly-recognized prerogative as Armor Corps’ ranking officer. Those redactions would remain in effect until the Joint Chiefs had fully examined the events of Shiva’s Wrath. Such reviews generally took a few months, but in this case, the general had expected it to take a small fraction of that time given the gravity of the situation.

  As a consequence of the general’s information fog, this particular review board was unaware of the battalion’s success in meeting with the Zeen. To their knowledge, which was informed by the carefully-manipulated facts General Akinouye let slip through his wall of redactions, the insect-like species had been Armor Corps’ enemy on the frozen worldlet.

  But one didn’t become an admiral by being a fool. Jenkins knew he was about to come under fire from one of the most clear-minded, incisive, and aggressive officers in the Terran Fleet. He had no illusions about “winning” the certain-to-be-contentious interview; Lee Jenkins merely needed to survive so that General Akinouye could come in and sweep up the debris after he exited stage left.