Star Peregrine

by Jake Elwood

  He wanted yet another cup of coffee, but the smell of cocoa wafting from her cup was suddenly the most wonderful thing he could imagine. He made a cup for himself, then lowered himself into a chair and gazed past Sawyer at the stars.

  When the hatch opened behind him he turned his head and raised a finger to his lips. Harper came in, nodding his understanding, and moved softly to the side counter. For a large man the marine lieutenant could be remarkably light on his feet. He pocketed an apple and turned toward the exit.

  Tom, filled with a sudden restlessness, grabbed his cocoa and followed. When the hatch to the wardroom closed behind him he said, "Harper? Do you have a minute?"

  The marine nodded. "Sure, Sir."

  Tom led the way to the boardroom, then paused in the doorway and said, "What the hell?"

  The boardroom table was covered in disassembled pieces of marine armor. A trio of marines were at work, tinkering with the components.

  "We usually do this in the shuttle bay or the scramble room," Harper said, sounding embarrassed. "Lieutenant Sawyer's people are using both rooms for hardware repair, so I commandeered the boardroom. I want all the suits inspected before tomorrow's operation."

  "That's fine." Tom retreated to the corridor, thinking. "Follow me."

  He led the way to the spine, where he stopped in front of the first cabin at the forward end. He had to use his bracer to order the ship's computer to override the default security settings before the hatch finally slid open.

  Tom and Harper stepped into the captain's cabin.

  He wasn't sure if the air smelled stale and dusty or if it was his imagination. The cabin wouldn't have been opened since the last time Nishida left it. It was the largest cabin on the ship, with a tiny meeting room in the front and a hatch at the back giving access to her sleeping quarters. It felt somehow disrespectful to be here. A corner of Tom's mind kept expecting the captain to come bustling in, outraged to find a junior officer in her quarters.

  But she's gone, and I'm the captain now. And it's just a room. Three chairs sat around a small circular table. Tom pulled a chair out and sat down, gesturing for Harper to do the same.

  "I thought about making this the new wardroom," Tom said. "We don't need all that space. Not for five of us." He shrugged. But with half the crew gone, no one else needs the wardroom either."

  Harper didn't speak, just raised an eyebrow.

  Tom sipped his cocoa, thinking about what he wanted to say. Delaying it, if he was completely honest. "Tomorrow's operation," he finally blurted. "It seemed like a good idea. I thought my mind was made up. But I'll be here on the Kestrel. I'll be safe, more or less. You'll be out there risking your neck. So tell me." He made himself look Harper in the eye. "Am I doing the right thing?"

  Harper started to speak, hesitated, and closed his mouth. He thought for a moment. "I don't know," he said at last. "That's your decision to make, not mine." When Tom opened his mouth Harper held up a hand, interrupting him. "I will say this. I don't feel like you're taking foolish chances with my life or the lives of my people. And I appreciate that." He shrugged, the movement strangely impressive from a man with such large shoulders. "We needs fuel, and there's fuel down there. Can we get it?" He lifted his hands, palms up. "It's doubtful. But flying to Hapsburg is doubtful too. There's no safe choices. So we might as well run this down the chute and see if she floats."

  Tom nodded, not sure if he felt gratified or disappointed by this watered-down vote of confidence. "I-"

  Harper leaned forward, interrupting him again, pointing a thick finger at Tom's chest. "You needs to get one thing through your head, Sir." His face was suddenly stern, and Tom leaned back, intimidated in spite of himself.

  "We's at war," said Harper. "We's in a tough spot, and before it's over there's likely to be casualties. No matter what you do, no matter what decisions you makes, it's pretty much a done deal that somebody is going to die. Maybe it'll be me and half my team on Parkland. Maybe it'll be the gun crews during a ship action. Or something neither of us has thought of. But we's not getting home without a fight, and people dies in fights. Understand?"

  "Yes …"

  "No you don't," Harper said. "Not really. But you needs to try to wrap your head around it. We can't have you freezing up when somebody dies." He waved a hand around. "If I doesn't make it back from Parkland, you still needs to act like a captain."

  He glared until Tom nodded. Harper's voice was softer when he continued. "The war's not your fault, Sir. If I dies on Parkland, that's not your fault either. You're doing all right as captain. If we dies, we dies. It's not on you." He stood. "Was that all, Sir?"

  Tom nodded, and Harper walked out. The door slid shut behind him, and Tom sat there alone, thinking about what the man had said. The room was quiet and peaceful, full of the comforting smell of cocoa. It was also just about the only place on the ship besides the head where he could be sure he wouldn't be interrupted. But the strangeness of sitting in a dead woman's cabin was too much for him. He stood up and walked out, back into the corridor, back to the weight of his duty.

  "We's all set, Sir. Ready to launch."

  Harper's voice, blurred a bit by static, came from the speaker on Tom's bridge console. He frowned, unable to quite bring himself to give his next order. The strike shuttle held seven people, and he couldn't shake a nagging feeling he was sending them all to their deaths. The marines had signed up for hazardous duty – which didn't make their lives any less precious – but the shuttle didn't just hold marines. Alice Rose was on the shuttle too, charged with acting as a liaison to the colonists on Parkland. Harper and his marines were thoroughly competent, but Alice was a good deal easier to talk to.

  He remembered how he'd first met her, her ship firing at the engines of a fleeing merchant ship until the Kestrel swooped in. She was a pirate. She'd signed up for hazardous duty, too.

  If we dies, we dies. It's not on you. "Easy for you to say," he muttered.

  "Sir?" O'Reilly glanced over his shoulder at Tom.

  "Nothing." He activated his mic. "You're cleared to launch."

  O'Reilly tapped a screen, then said, "Shuttle's away."

  Tom stared at his First Officer. "Why are we both on the bridge, O'Reilly? Shouldn't you be resting? I can't have you exhausted during your shift."

  "It is my shift," O'Reilly said cheerfully. "You're supposed to be off duty for the next two hours and fifteen minutes, Sir."

  Tom gave him a dirty look, which O'Reilly ignored. There's no point in taking a break now. I won't be able to relax. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Of course, if all I'm going to do is fidget, it's better if I do it somewhere else. He stood. "Fine. I'll see you in a couple of hours."

  "I'll be here, Sir."

  He left the bridge, thinking about the strike shuttle, which was hurtling toward the planet and God only knew what dangers. The plan had seemed nice and simple when they'd discussed it in the boardroom. Send a team to the planet, make a discreet landing, and start visiting spaceports. All they needed was one poorly guarded fuel tanker and their problems would be solved.

  Now, with seven people irrevocably committed, the plan felt like folly. One disaster after another rose up in his mind's eye, presented in excruciating detail by his treacherous imagination. He was starting to think only a miracle would allow him to see Harper, Alice, and the others again, except for scenarios that ended with the Kestrel destroyed and everyone in the same prison camp, or facing the same firing squad.

  "Why?" he muttered as he headed for the spine. "Why did I ever think I wanted to be an officer?"

  Chapter 6

  "Parkland, my ass." A plume of vapor formed in front of Alice's face as she spoke the words. She was bitterly cold, uncomfortable in a thick, poorly fitting coat borrowed from the Kestrel's slop chest, and unimpressed by the company she had to keep.

  Harper, standing beside her, shifted his weight, making the snow around his boots creak. "It's not the most convincing name," he admitted. "I'm
sure it's nice during the day."

  A day that lasted for months was beyond Alice's ability to imagine. She turned in a slow circle, looking at the marines around her and the tiny pools of light shining from their helmet lights. The helmets, patterned in gray camouflage, had furry ear flaps and built-in speakers and microphones. Alice wore one herself. The flaps, designed to interfere with hearing as little as possible, were so thin her ears burned with cold.

  Somewhere behind her the shuttle crouched in a snowy field, a solitary marine inside. Every light on the shuttle was out. The craft was no more than a hundred or so paces away, but she couldn't see any hint of it.

  Above her the stars sparkled, almost as clear as they were from space. Parkland had very little air pollution, and although they had landed on the outskirts of a city, there wasn't a light bigger than a helmet lamp in a thousand kilometers.

  "Still showing nothing," murmured a voice to the left.

  "Okay, let's move out," Harper said. "Don't get sloppy. We doesn't know what the residents left behind to discourage looting. And the DA might send out patrols."

  He led the way into the darkness, the legs of his insulated trousers making a faint zip-zop sound as they rubbed together. Two more marines followed, staying a good dozen paces behind the lieutenant, and Alice followed them. Harper had told her in no uncertain terms that her place was in the middle of the squad, keeping quiet and doing exactly as she was told.

  She wore a pistol somewhere under her coat. She figured it would take her a good minute or so to get at it in an emergency. It was her only weapon. The marines around her carried enough firepower to make any contribution from her superfluous. They were here for fighting; she was here for talking. She figured the division of labor was probably wise.

  The spaceport was their goal. It stood on the outskirts of the city, but they had touched down almost ten kilometers away, on the far side of a jutting suburb. The best scanning equipment in the city would be at the spaceport. Harper hadn't wanted the shuttle anywhere near it.

  The marine ahead of her was almost invisible. His helmet light cast a sort of halo a couple meters above the ground with his head forming an umbra in the center. Two more halos, fainter, showed ahead of him, one to the left and the other to the right. As she watched, the halo on the right brightened on one side as the marine turned her head.

  "I think I found a road, Sir."

  "Good," Harper said. "We'll take it." A new light source appeared, swinging through the air in a short arc. It was a hand-held light, and Harper was using it to direct the squad to the right. She changed course, trudging through snow that deepened suddenly as the ground beneath it rose.

  The road was invisible, covered by several centimeters of snow, but she knew immediately when she'd reached it. The surface beneath was perfectly smooth and refreshingly solid. The snow seemed a bit less deep, too, perhaps cleared by the wind.

  "Let's not drag it, shall we?" Harper said, and broke into a trot. The squad moved with him, and Alice jogged, planting her feet in the boot tracks of the marines ahead of her.

  A click in her ear told her someone had activated the radio. Harper's voice murmured, "Are you all right with the pace, Alice?"

  She wasn't used to running – there was little call for it on small ships – but she figured the faster she went, the quicker she'd warm up. She fumbled with gloved fingers, trying to find the boom mic on the side of her helmet. Finally she gave up and called, "I'm fine."

  "Good," said Harper over the radio. "Let me know if you need to slow down."

  The air was cold enough to burn her nasal passages as her breathing quickened. She inhaled through her mouth, felt the cold sear her lungs, and went back to breathing through her nose. The tension of creeping around on a hostile world had filled her with an aimless stress, a maddening urge to do something. She poured all that frustrated energy into jogging, as her nose went numb and her legs settled into an almost pleasant rhythm.

  Starlight gave her only the faintest impression of her surroundings as the road turned and wound through a suburb. She thought she could see the shape of buildings on either side, but she might have imagined it. On and on they jogged, her initial nervous energy giving way to a growing exhaustion. Stubborn pride kept her from showing weakness in front of the marines, so she gritted her teeth and kept going. Her temperature rose and she unsealed the front of her jacket, wishing she could tie up her earflaps. A trickle of sweat made its way down her back, and she thought longingly of the cold that had seemed so pervasive such a short time before.

  With every weary step she sank deeper into herself, until she didn't notice when Harper finally called a halt. Only when she ran into the marine ahead of her did she come back to herself and stumble to a halt.

  The marine turned, grinning. "What's the matter, Rose? You having so much fun you couldn't bear to stop?"

  No snappy comebacks occurred to her, which was just as well, since she was panting too hard to speak. She sagged forward, put her hands on her knees, stared at her boots, and focused on breathing.

  The marines, to her intense annoyance, weren't even short of breath. It seemed they had reached the last row of houses before the spaceport. They were creeping through someone's yard to take a look.

  "You know, there's a fine line between pulling your weight and being a damned fool." Harper's voice came over the radio in her helmet. "Next time, tell me you need to slow down. Don't make me guess."

  Alice, not having the breath to reply, ignored him.

  She was standing upright with her breathing almost under control when Harper gathered the squad around him. "There isn't a single ship there, and if they has fuel tanks they's underground and locked tight. It looks like we's doing it the hard way." Alice couldn't see his face, but she could hear the grin in his voice. "At least we'll get some sunshine."

  They hiked back to the shuttle, moving much slower now. Alice's legs were exhausted, but energy filled her. They were going to cross the dawn line and head for an occupied city. There would be no discreet theft from an abandoned city.

  They would have to fight for their fuel.

  The shuttle, covered in armor plating, had no windows in the main body. Instead, screens on the inside surfaces showed a view from the tiny cameras that covered the outside of the hull. The screens set into the deck plates were a little disconcerting, creating the impression of gaps in the floor. Alice looked down and watched the ground gradually lighten as the shuttle approached the dawn line.

  The ghostly shapes of trees, their branches bare and stark, emerged from the gloom beneath. As the shuttle flew on it was as if the seasons were changing. Snow gave way to brown grass, and buds appeared on the trees. When the sun was completely over the horizon the buds became young leaves, and the occasional patch of open ground showed glints of green in the brown grass. As the shuttle flew on the sun seemed to rise, and the ground came to life beneath them. Before long the forest was a cloud of green leaves a few meters beneath the shuttle.

  The forest ended and farmland appeared, the dividing line as straight as a laser beam. The shuttle promptly dropped several meters. Alice couldn't see what the crop was, but it stretched as far as she could see in every direction, the surface rippling like ocean waves.

  The shuttle slowed, and she looked up in time to see a farmyard surrounded by a rectangular windbreak of trees. She glimpsed a house and barn and several outbuildings before the line of trees hid it all from sight.

  The shuttle changed direction, dropping low and keeping a shallow ridge between the ship and the yard. A small hill thrust up perhaps a kilometer from the farmyard, a round knob furred with small trees. The shuttle swung around to the far side of the hill and touched down at the edge of the crop, in the shade of the first trees. The side hatch slid open.

  "O'Hare. Jones. Head up to the top of that hill and take a good look around." Harper gestured upward with his thumb. "The rest of you sit tight."

  Alice watched as a couple of marines hurried out
of the shuttle. She sat, silent and impatient, wondering how the rest of them could be so calm. Then O'Hare's voice said, "We're in position, Lieutenant."

  A screen near the front of the shuttle changed, showing a wobbly, out-of-focus view from the top of the hill. O'Hare said, "Uh-oh," and the camera steadied.

  A vehicle came toward them from the direction of the distant farmyard. It was a battered-looking thing, a disc about three meters across that hovered just above the crop. A solitary figure sat atop the disc, steering with a couple of levers.

  The vehicle headed straight for the hill.

  The camera zoomed in, making the image wobble and jump. The driver was a man, middle-aged and dressed in simple work clothes. He had a tanned, weathered face and an expression of calm boredom.

  "He doesn't look dangerous," Harper said. "We won't take any chances, but we won't be in any hurry to shoot him, either. Understand?"

  No one spoke.

  "O'Hare. Jones. Keep your heads down and your eyes open. I'd rather he didn't notice you." Harper's gaze swept the inside of the shuttle. "Unger. Stark. Rose. You're with me." He indicated the hatch with a jerk of his head. "Let's go meet the locals."

  Chapter 7

  Every world had its own kind of sunshine. Parkland's star was white, and although it looked small in the sky it was bright and hot, casting sharp shadows. The air was warm, almost too warm, and smelled of soil and green leaves. Alice lifted a hand to shade her eyes as the farmer's vehicle came around the base of the hill.

  She didn't quite know what to call the contraption; she'd never seen one before. It moved at the speed of a brisk walk, humming softly and spreading ripples through the crop as it approached. It drifted to a halt a dozen paces away, and half a dozen stubby metal legs extended from the bottom. The machine descended a handspan or so, and the hum of the engine went silent.

  "You set off a sensor when you touched down." The man had an accent Alice hadn't heard before, a strange way of flattening his vowels. If he was alarmed by the sidearms the marines wore or the rifles slung across their backs, he gave no sign. "We get deer wandering in from the forest sometimes. They make a mess of the crop, so I usually herd them back where they came from."