by C H Gideon
The image of Samuels returned, and this time, she stood atop the highest building on Terra Han, the Bronze Phoenix Tower. The commanding view behind her was truly breathtaking, and it was impossible to ignore the new watermark on the lower righthand corner of the screen that read “DIN.”
“Strong words. And they were spoken by a particularly strong, dedicated woman who I’m not ashamed to admit makes me proud to call myself a Terran,” Samuels continued. “And the more I thought about what she said, the more convinced I became that Captain Xi Bao is right. We, the people, cannot be trusted with our own government if we do not have all the facts at our disposal. As a lifelong journalist, it gives me no pleasure to say that we can do better to bring you the truth than we have done. No…” Her eyes hardened into icy pools that seemed to pierce Xi’s soul. “We must do better. Which is why I’m proud to announce—” She splayed her hands wide, gesturing to the interior of the Bronze Phoenix Tower, where dozens of technicians sat at data-feed workstations. “—that this report is the first of many we’ll be featuring here on the newly-founded Durgan Investigative Network. Our goal isn’t to tell you what to think. It’s to investigate where others won’t, to dig up stories that others ignore, and to present you as many facts as we can gather. And then we’ll move on to the next story, leaving the conjecture and opinion to you, because that’s what we’re supposed to do. It’s what you deserve, it’s what humanity needs, and it’s what DIN will provide. This is Sarah Samuels, signing off.”
The screen went blank, leaving the trio in a stunned silence that lasted three full minutes before Styles snickered. “You’d better dust off your makeup kit, Captain.”
Xi shot him a bewildered look, but Colonel Jenkins nodded in total agreement. “He’s right,” Jenkins explained. “You’re about to be swamped with interview requests.”
“I’ll set up the feeds.” Styles stood and quickly made his way to the door.
“But…we’re on information quarantine!” Xi objected, more than a little dismayed at the thought of sitting in front of a camera to provide satellite interviews. “The Bonhoeffer’s transceivers are under complete blackout! You just said so!”
Jenkins grinned, showing greater determination and resolve than she’d seen in him for two full weeks. “I think our friend Mr. Durgan just lifted the blackout…the hard way.”
Xi groaned in despair, sinking as deep into her chair as it would let her go while her CO laughed.
“Look on the bright side,” he said, enjoying her discomfort as he schooled his features into a reasonably neutral expression. “You’ll probably have a few thousand marriage proposals by this time tomorrow.”
She glared at him in irritation before finally flashing a lopsided grin. “I guess there might be an interesting gift or two…”
“That’s the spirit,” Jenkins declared as she stood from the chair and sighed.
“I hate cameras,” she muttered, “but I hate makeup even more.”
Less than an hour after the DIN’s inaugural program was broadcast across the New American data net, the Bonhoeffer’s information quarantine was provisionally lifted. They were not permitted to discuss any details of their deployment, but they were able to receive a lengthy stream of communiques while Captain Xi was given the ability to conduct “character interviews” with the nearly two hundred media outlets that had lined up to speak to her as soon as Samuels’ report had ended.
A dozen or so requests had come in for Jenkins himself, but he had declined since he had more important business items to address.
Foremost among those items was a sit-down with Chief Podsednik, who soon appeared at Jenkins’ door sporting a poorly-coordinated but fully-functional pair of prosthetic legs.
“Enter,” the lieutenant colonel commanded, and the wily chief known to the Legion as “Podsy” entered the room.
He was thin and sported a nearly-healed bruise covering the left side of his face, but his posture was upright and worthy of an Armor Corps officer in spite of having just spent three solid weeks in the spaceship’s brig. To say nothing of this being the first time Jenkins had seen him with his new, prosthetic legs beneath him.
“Chief.” Jenkins gestured to the seat opposite his own, and Podsy assumed the chair. “First off, how’s the eye?” he asked, gesturing to Podsy’s still-red eye. Likely a gift from Li’s people from when they initially delivered Podsy to the brig.
“Doc says it’ll be good as new in another couple of weeks, Colonel,” Podsy replied confidently.
Jenkins knew he needed to deal with this carefully. It was possible, even likely, that Colonel Li had him under constant surveillance while aboard the Bonhoeffer. That made every word he was about to say to Podsy of significant importance.
After all, the Armor Corps had just the one combat-ready assault carrier, and Li wasn’t the type to give up his command willingly.
“All right, I’ll cut straight to it,” Jenkin said. “You violated the Bonhoeffer’s data system integrity without prior authorization, and in doing so, you broke two dozen regs. Do you dispute this?”
Podsy shook his head firmly. “No, sir, I do not.”
Jenkins nodded approvingly. “When you’re a Wrench on one of my mechs, you’re your Jock’s problem, which means there’s someone between you and me to save me the frustration of dealing with a hotheaded, loose cannon like you every minute of every day. I don’t enjoy taking blowback for things I didn’t do. Do you understand me, mister?” he demanded with steadily-increasing volume.
“Yes, Colonel, I do, sir.” Podsy nodded stiffly. Jenkins only hoped the other man could read the situation without external cues, and respond as he hoped he would.
“You’ve jammed me up here, Chief.” Jenkins grimaced. “Because on the one hand, I’d like to bust your ass back down to a deckhand and watch you spend the next six months scrubbing the deck with your tongue. But on the other—” His face twisted sourly. “—everyone under Colonel Li’s command during our latest deployment has been recommended for commendation for scrapping the first Jemmin ship in Terran history. I can’t in good conscience allow you to be commended for breaking regs, Chief, but Colonel Li has insisted it would be unfair to you not to receive some sort of recognition for the part you played in neutralizing the Jemmin at Shiva’s Wrath.”
Podsy’s eyes flickered with confusion before finally, he seemed to understand where Jenkins was going with this.
“On top of all that,” Jenkins continued blithely, producing a stack of requisition forms as thick as his forearm, “it seems that you’ve managed to call in more ordnance, perishables, and even derelict vehicles,” he said with legitimate surprise that Podsy had somehow succeeded in horse-trading for three mechs previously held in private collections, “in the last few weeks before we shipped out than I managed to put aboard the Bonhoeffer prior to deploying to Shiva’s Wrath.”
Jenkins took out a pair of silver lieutenant’s pips still in their decorative case and tossed them onto Podsy’s lap.
“I’m not putting those on you, Chief, because I don’t think you’ve earned them,” Jenkins snapped. “But there’s someone aboard this ship who might. My advice to you? Go to him right now, this instant, and demonstrate not only that you’re remorseful but that you can be an indispensable member of the team going forward. Make him believe,” he said with perhaps a bit more theatricality than he was going for, “that you’re a changed man, and I might be inclined to believe it myself.” Jenkins stood from the desk, looking down with as much measured disdain as he could summon. “I’ve got an inspection to make of the drop-deck, where the rest of the battalion is doing their duty.” He shook his head and hoped he conveyed ample disappointment. “You’re dismissed.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Podsy said, bracing to attention and saluting before awkwardly turning on his prosthetic heels and leaving Jenkins’ berth aboard the Bonhoeffer.
A few minutes later, Jenkins arrived at a specially-prepared drop-can where Styles and Xi were
putting the finishing touches on their latest project. Everyone was in place, and everything was prepared. Now the only thing left to them was to wait.
Minutes steadily ticked by until the faint footfalls of boots on the deck approached the drop-can. Andrew Podsednik soon emerged at the open mouth of the can, which erupted in cheers and a relatively meager but well-deserved shower of confetti as the newly-minted lieutenant was greeted by every member of the battalion that had been deployed on Shiva’s Wrath.
“Congratulations, Podsy.” Xi was the first to embrace him, and she was soon followed by every other member of the battalion. They knew he had been the key part of their lifeline during deployment, and they knew the risk he had taken by uploading the antivirus.
“Thank you, everyone,” Podsy said after a few minutes of celebration. “I’m just glad you’re all okay.”
“Lieutenant Podsednik.” Jenkins lifted a glass of what had to be the worst hooch ever distilled by servicemen in human history. “Well done.”
“Thank you, sir,” Podsednik said with feeling as his eyes began to mist over.
“Enjoy yourselves,” Jenkins urged before disembarking the drop-can and leaving his people to enjoy the moment.
God knew they’d earned it.
21
Chairman of the Board
High above New America was the DSV Kirin, the most powerful non-government warship to fly the Terran Republic’s banner. The flagship of the Durgan Security Fleet, its armaments rivaled the Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s, and it served as the mobile headquarters for none other than Chairman Durgan himself.
Jenkins followed the private security officer through the ship’s snake-like corridors before arriving at a gilded wooden door carved with religious iconography from essentially every human society throughout history.
He took a moment to appreciate the carvings and their quality before passing through the door and seeing a breathtaking compartment beyond.
Fully thirty meters across, the semi-circular room’s curved, far wall was a transparent viewing portal beyond which the icy sphere of New America loomed.
“Colonel Jenkins,” Durgan greeted, standing beside the viewing portal and uncannily reminding Jenkins of General Akinouye’s similar stance near one of the Bonhoeffer’s viewing portals a few days earlier. “Come in.”
Surprisingly, this particular image was undeniably more impressive than even that struck by the Armor Corps’ top officer aboard his flagship.
Jenkins made his way to stand beside Director Durgan, who said, “I never tire of this view. When I look down there, I don’t see a planet in the middle stages of terraforming. I see the future of humanity, carried on the backs of a hundred million hardworking people who want nothing more than to sink their roots as deep as possible so they might secure our species’ future.”
Jenkins nodded silently, surmising the director hadn’t asked him here to interrupt his speeches.
“You did well on Shiva’s Wrath,” Durgan congratulated after a brief but pointed pause. “Well enough, in fact, that I was able to recruit Ms. Samuels after nearly a year of failed attempts to do so. Her former employer was…displeased with her departure—” The magnate’s mouth quirked in satisfaction. “—which came at a most inopportune time, from their perspective.”
“What changed her mind?” Jenkins asked with genuine curiosity.
“You did, of course,” Durgan chuckled. “I’ve prepared a little presentation I hope you’ll indulge me in watching?”
“Of course,” Jenkins agreed, and the lights dimmed before Sarah Samuels’ image sprang to life via holo-emitter in the center of the room.
“This is Sarah Samuels, embedded reporter with the Terran Armor Corps on the frozen world known as Shiva’s Wrath,” the reporter began, standing on the same ice-field from which she had opened her DIN report. “Some say the Armor Corps is outdated, that modern warfare requires flexibility and versatility which is simply impossible to achieve with vehicles whose designs often date back two centuries. Critics say the battlefield for the Republic’s future is changing faster than we are, and if we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves on the losing end of a race for the future of our Terran way of life.”
Durgan accelerated the recording, skipping past several minutes of her continued monologue while he casually remarked, “I trust you get the idea.”
“I do,” Jenkins said, setting his jaw as he realized just how dangerous Sarah Samuels had been to the Armor Corps’ future. She had prepared two separate, conflicting narratives during her time with the Legion. One had been intended to bury Jenkins and his branch, the other intended to canonize them.
He shuddered to think of the difference in his peoples’ lives if she had opted to air the former and not the latter.
“I can assure you, Colonel Jenkins,” he said, pausing the recording on the image of a Zeen vehicle-bug’s wreckage, “that she was not cheaply bought. Suppressing this portion of her report cost me very, very dearly.” He turned to Jenkins with an expectant look. “Are we on the same page?”
Jenkins nodded resolutely. “We are.”
“Good,” the director said, his gaze lingering on Jenkins before he deactivated the projector and caused the lights to resume their previous luminosity. “Because what I’m about to show you could cost me even more dearly than Ms. Samuels’ silence,” Durgan said, beckoning for Jenkins to follow him to a door on the far wall.
Jenkins followed the director to the door, and Durgan keyed in a series of codes, then did a biometric scan. The door slid open, revealing what looked like an airlock beyond. Durgan stepped into the airlock, and Jenkins followed. The door slid shut behind them, locking with a hiss before a decontamination cycle initiated.
When the cycle completed, the second door slid open to reveal a dimly-lit, circular chamber.
Durgan moved into the room, followed by Jenkins, and when the airlock door secured behind them, it plunged the room into darkness.
“This room contains my two most precious secrets, Colonel,” the director said from a few meters to Jenkins’ left. “The first of which I do not expect you to recognize,” he explained as a soft, blue light illuminated a six-foot-tall, two-foot-wide transparent cylinder three meters in front of Jenkins.
The cylinder was filled with a pale blue liquid, and floating motionless at the cylinder’s center was the shriveled form of something bipedal, but beyond that, Jenkins had no reasonable guess as to what it was.
He stepped closer to the cylinder, examining it from top to bottom for several seconds before determining its head was in fact above, and its caudal section was below in what was only barely-suggestive of a bipedal form. Its bony, emaciated arms were covered in what looked like sores, and its face was a twisted mockery of anything deserving to be called such.
But there was something strange about that face which caught his attention. Something unnatural. Something…
“Not symmetrical,” Jenkins realized aloud, recoiling as he understood what he was looking at. “This is a Jemmin?”
“Impressive, Colonel,” the director said with mixed surprise and approval. “Yes, this is a Jemmin. But to refer to it in the singular might not be linguistically consistent with our concept of individuality.”
“It doesn’t look anything like the images we saw transmitted by the Azure Spire.” Jenkins peered closer at the thing’s sunken, misshapen head.
“This particular Jemmin was a rogue,” Durgan explained, “but in order to gain its freedom and become an individual, it had to undergo a painful, self-destructive, and ultimately fatal series of operations.”
“How do you know this?” Jenkins asked warily.
“Because it told us so,” Durgan replied matter-of-factly. “More precisely, it told my grandfather so shortly before it died over a hundred years ago.”
Jenkins felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. Durgan’s family has interacted with the Jemmin for over a century? His mind began to race through the possible repercussions
.
“You’re probably wondering whether you can trust any of this, now that you know my family has been directly exposed to the Jemmin and their potential lines of misinformation,” Durgan continued, correctly identifying Jenkins’ present misgivings. “Which is why I’ve arranged for you to meet someone who, I hope, will put your mind at ease on that front.”
A second faint light filled the room, but this light was a verdant green and grew steadily in brightness until it dwarfed the pale blue of the Jemmin’s specimen container. Jenkins turned toward the source of the green light and was strangely unsurprised at what he saw.
Floating in a second transparent container, this one egg-shaped and supported on a rolling chassis about two meters long, was an octopus-looking creature. Its tentacles waved hypnotically, and its skin flashed with a bizarre, far-too-fast sequence of colors and patterns that were nothing short of dazzling.
“Colonel Jenkins,” Durgan introduced, “meet Deep Currents of Radiant Warmth, my personal contact with the Vorr Cooperative.”
“Colonel Jenkins,” a distinctly feminine voice emanated from the Vorr’s fluid-filled pod, “we are pleased to formally meet. Director Durgan speaks highly of you. On behalf of my people, I extend an offer of friendship and clarity,” the Vorr said, and Jenkins watched as it seemed to “pop” a third of one of its tentacles off, which it carefully gripped in two others and gently lowered to the floor of the egg pod.
Jenkins watched with mixed alarm and fascination as the dismembered segment of the Vorr’s body was sucked off the pod’s floor and quickly presented on a small, tray-like apparatus built into the pod’s drive system.