“Lisbeth Zhang,” she said, shaking it. He was good-looking. She and Nando weren’t seeing each other anymore; things had gotten weird after the battle of Parthenon. And the transport to her final destination wasn’t due to depart for another twenty-four hours. There were possibilities here, possibilities that might need exploring. “What brings you to the USS Lowell?”
“Headed to my new command. The Cromwell, part of DESRON 91.”
A quick mental query revealed that the USS Cromwell was a Statesman-class destroyer and that the six-vessel squadron would accompany the diplomatic mission that had shanghaied her. Small universe.
“We’re all going the same way, then,” she said. “As in all the way to Xanadu.”
Not exactly the same way, of course. He’d be in command of a destroyer, slightly larger than a frigate but just as cramped and uncomfortable. She would spend her time in a cruise liner alongside the other members of the diplomatic mission. She was part of a diplomatic mission. Ghu help them all.
“I see,” he said after she explained. His eyes widened in recognition. “That was you? Piloted a broken pod back and forth all over Jasper-Five?”
Lisbeth shrugged, dismissing those minutes of frantic terror with the simple gesture. She still had nightmares about it. It’d been one hell of a ride. She’d been in shock over the loss of the two ships under her command when she made her final approach into the planet’s atmosphere aboard a damaged escape pod, which had proceeded to come apart while she desperately tried to steer it. By rights she should have died there. By rights she should have died half a dozen different ways from the moment she’d arrived to Jasper System. And now her ordeal had turned her into a celebrity of sorts, notorious enough to be removed from the most important military program in the US and sent out to amuse some superannuated aliens. Even thinking about it got her worked up again.
“Didn’t mean to bring back bad memories,” Captain Orlov said.
“It wasn’t a good day. Still gets to me. And I don’t like being paraded around for propaganda purposes. I’d rather be flying sorties, or at least helping train the next class of pilots.”
The Langley Project had started out as a secret Marine program. The unexpected success of the carrier-based warp fighters it’d developed had transformed it into a massive multi-service effort. Shipyards throughout the US were switching gears to produce dozens of new carrier vessels and hundreds, eventually thousands of fighters. Training pilots was going to be the main hurdle, though. Not least because flying a warp fighter was... different. That was as good a way of putting it as any. If by different you meant a combination of harrowing mental stress combined with something that could be either extreme hallucinations or genuine supernatural experiences.
This was the first time in months that she’d been away from the only people who could truly understand what she was going through. They were hundreds of light years away, at Wolf 1061 or back at Groom Base, where she’d been inducted into the pilot program and become something else altogether. Sometimes she thought she could sense their presence, despite being an impossible distance away.
… and she’d spaced out again. “Sorry,” she told the Navy officer.
“I know how it is,” he said. “The Little Rock took a couple of direct hits at Parthenon. I was on the bridge. Missile hit. Enough of it got through to blast a hole in a bulkhead and send shrapnel flying everywhere. We lost a lot of good people.” He paused. “I still see it, once in a while. You never leave those moments, not really.”
“Yes,” she agreed. Everybody who had survived combat had that much in common. The human mind imprinted moments of great stress and trauma more deeply than anything else. “Bad memories and all, I’d rather be doing my job than this crap.”
“I hear you. Spending my first command babysitting some dignitaries isn’t my first choice, either. I’d rather be blasting Lampreys or Imperials, now that the Vipers have thrown in the towel.”
“Right there with you.” The Lampreys had been behind the events at Jasper-Five. Their mines had blown up her ships. The Fang-Faces owed her two hundred lives, and if she had the chance she wanted to extract a thousand-fold payment from them. Throw in another hundred thousand for her ruined Navy career, and she might call it even. Or not.
“Then again, maybe we could both use some boring duty,” Orlov said. “Recharge the batteries, you know?”
“Maybe.”
She had a bad feeling about the whole mission, though, beyond her anger at being sidelined in the middle of a shooting war. And ever since she’d become a warp pilot, her hunches and feelings had been eerily accurate.
“Maybe it won’t be boring at all,” she added, and earned a sidelong glance from the bubblehead captain.
New Parris Orbital Spacedock, Star System Musik, 166 AFC
They were finally on their way, after more Mickey Mouse crap than he’d thought possible.
Fromm glanced at the status board. Gunnery Sergeant Freito and the four platoons’ guide sergeants were supervising the loading of Charlie Company’s gear into the hold of the civilian luxury liner Brunhild. Colonel Brighton had persuaded the powers-that-be to let the company bring along their full load of weapons and equipment, including the sixteen Hellcat battlesuits of Fourth Platoon. None of it was likely to make much of a difference if the shit truly hit the fan, but after the Days of Infamy he’d learned it was better to have as many options as possible.
Of course, they’d wasted two weeks in something else altogether. Introduction to Starfarer Diplomacy, as a matter of fact.
Fromm and the company officers and senior non-coms had been through the mandatory course, which had eaten valuable hours they could have spent making sure all the other bureaucratic crap involved in detaching the company from the battalion and the rest of the 101st Marine Expeditionary Unit went through smoothly. The course had been a State Department requirement, on the off-chance the Marines were allowed to roam Xanadu without proper adult supervision, and it boiled down to ‘please don’t insult anybody.’ Or shoot anybody without good reason for that matter. The Rules of Engagement under which Charlie Company would be operating were downright murky; basically things were left to the discretion of either the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s Agent in Charge or the highest-ranking military officer on the ground if the AIC wasn’t available. A Marine one-star general was supposed to be among the delegates. Hopefully he’d be somebody sensible.
At least they’d be traveling to Xanadu in style. His troops and about two hundred VIPs and their staffers, sycophants and dependents would hardly fill the massive cruise ship, which had the displacement of a battleship and could carry six thousand passengers in a style that you couldn’t afford on an O-3’s pay. The crew of the Brunhild had been replaced by Navy ratings, but the lodgings would still be a lot better than what you got in an assault ship.
Using a civilian vessel as their primary means of transport bothered him, luxury or not. He wasn’t an expert in naval affairs by any means, but he knew the main reason warships were, ton by ton, fifteen or twenty times as expensive as regular ships was their ability to jump into warp beyond the ‘mouths’ of warp valleys, allowing them to conduct FTL maneuvers inside a star system. Just as importantly, a military vessel could enter warp in under half an hour or even a few minutes if one was prepared to divert energy from weapon and defense systems. Normal ships took as long as two or three hours, mostly because they didn’t have the reserve power to do otherwise. That fancy cruise liner looked pretty and had plenty of bunk room, but it couldn’t run away if it had to, not unless it was in exactly the right place and had plenty of advance warning. The destroyer squadron escorting the Brunhild was little more than a token force, and one that wouldn’t be able to evacuate more than half the passengers in an emergency.
The VIPs wanted their creature comforts, however. And from a military point of view, a cruise liner was more expendable than an assault ship, especially now that most of the latter were being converted into
light carrier vessels. If things went wrong at Xanadu, a quick getaway wasn’t an option. Nothing he could do about it, of course, so he might as well concentrate on the things he could control.
Having less than two hundred troops surrounded by about as many civilians, most of whom hadn’t worn a uniform since their teenage years, could lead to all sorts of trouble, some of which could be corrosive to the discipline and good order that separated Marines from a gang of thugs. The NCOs would have their hands full, and the senior NCOs and officers would be pretty busy ensuring the NCOs didn’t fall prey to the same temptations besetting the rank and file. The trip would take twelve days and thirty-two warp hours, the latter spread over six jumps ranging from three to seven hours in length. Musik to Sol, Sol to Drake, Drake to Lahiri, Lahiri to Bethlehem, Bethlehem to New Phoenix, New Phoenix to Xanadu. Nobody was certain how long the deployment at Xanadu would last. That would be up to their Tah-Leen hosts.
He’d like to think that his Marines would stay out of trouble for twelve days, but they could be devilish creative if they didn’t have something better to do. The good thing was, there was enough empty space in the cruise liner to let him run a few ship clearance exercises. That and a few tests and field days would keep his people busy. There were a couple of social functions that included enlisted as well as officers, but he could trust them to behave themselves during those. Mostly. First Sergeant Goldberg would put the worst of the trouble children on guard duty to deliver them from evil.
That was about it. He’d coordinate with the Agent in Charge as needed; he would be meeting with her upon arriving to Earth. Fromm’s troops were there mostly for show, but formulating plans to deal with possible eventualities couldn’t hurt. The last State Department security puke he’d worked with, Mario Rockwell, spoke highly of the AIC. Rockwell himself was going on the trip, but as a ‘distinguished guest,’ one of the hundred or so people personally invited by the Tah-Leen.
Fromm had the rest of the day off. He watched the loading remotely via his imp, careful not to joggle anyone’s elbows. You didn’t want to micromanage, and his NCOs all knew how to do their jobs.
Once the loading was finished, Fromm started heading back to his quarters. An icon indicating an imp-to-imp call started flashing with the caller’s name and picture. He recognized both immediately, even though it was someone he hadn’t spoken with in over a decade.
June Gillespie’s smiling face filled the upper left quadrant of his field of vision. Other than her original blonde hair being red now, she looked largely like she had at the end of their Obligatory Service and the celebratory party where he’d last seen her in person.
“Pete!”
His answering grin was slightly forced. They’d traded a few calls and emails a couple of times after that party, but they’d petered out to nothing by the time he’d left Annapolis with his butter bars. He’d figured he’d never hear from her again. And he suddenly realized he wasn’t particularly glad to hear from her now. She was part of a past he’d long left behind.
“Hey, Juney.”
“You don’t look very pleased to see me, Pete,” she said.
“Just a bit surprised is all.” She’d been the one who stopped answering his occasional emails. By now he only thought of her once in a blue moon.
“I just arrived to Musik System. Running errands for the State Department in preparation for the big trip. I’ll be catching a ride with your Marines and General Gage on the Brunhild on its way to Sol. Figured it would be nice to catch up.”
“I see,” he said while he ran a quick imp query. June was part of State Secretary Goftalu’s staff, listed as a tech consultant. She’d gotten four doctorates, three in assorted STEM fields, the other in Galactic History.
“You busy tonight? I’m at loose ends till tomorrow and could use some dinner.”
He thought about it for a few seconds. He was off duty until his meeting tomorrow. There wasn’t a good reason to turn her down.
“Sure, why not?”
* * *
“You’ve changed, Pete,” she said after they’d ordered.
Fromm shrugged, turning his gaze away from the gleaming blue-brown orb of New Parris and back to her. He’d never eaten at The Promenade before. The prices at the fancy restaurant were just as outrageous as he’d expected, but at least its location, a transparent dome on the side the docking station, meant the view was great. The USWMC’s home world wasn’t much to look at on the ground, but it looked pretty enough from orbit.
“You look the same,” he told her. “Other than the hair, just the way I saw you last time.”
“You haven’t been following me all these years? Well, that’s a waste of fifty thousand pictures on Facettergram. Heck, Brad is all but stalking me, has been ever since we decided to part ways after NIT.”
“What’s Brad up to these days?” Fromm asked absently. He could have checked on his former best friend himself, but the truth was he didn’t care enough to do so. Like June, Bradley Montgomery wasn’t part of his life anymore.
“He’s fine. On this third marriage and second career. Politician, believe it or not. Running for the State Senate, back in New Michigan. As a freaking Federalist, no less.” Her mouth twisted in distaste.
“Heh.” Last time he’d checked, the Federalists were little more than a fringe movement. Hardly a threat to the Eagle Party, which had ruled the country since the end of the State of Emergency. “Doesn’t sound like Brad.”
“He got bored with technology a couple of years after NIT. Can’t blame him; it’s not like we do much research anymore. Just copy and paste stuff other Starfarers have handed down to us, which they in turn got from older Starfarers, pretty much ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
“But enough about Brad. I barely recognized you, Pete, even after seeing you on my imp. You walk differently, carry yourself differently. Even the way your face is set isn’t the way I remember it.”
“Guess all my beauty sleep is paying off.”
“Funny guy.” She stared at him in silence for a moment. “So. Do you?”
“What?”
“Regret it.”
“No,” he replied without thinking. He knew what she was talking about: his decision to make a career of the Corps after their Obligatory Service term was over. It was just like June to continue a decade-old conversation as if no time had passed.
“And you’ve almost gotten killed how many times?”
“Scratch ‘almost.’ I was clinically dead for fifteen minutes at Jasper-Five,” he said, the glib words belying the sickening reality.
“Jesus.”
“I made my choice. Let’s leave it at that.”
Something in his tone or his expression made her shudder. “Okay. Sorry.”
“So how did you end up working for the State Department?” Fromm asked her, changing the subject.
He shouldn’t be here. Even her calling him Pete grated on his nerves. He mostly thought of himself by his last name. Captain Fromm was his identity. Only Heather and a couple close friends called him Peter, and nobody had called him Pete since Ob-Serv.
“It’s sort of my way of giving back, I guess,” she said. “I’m really a temp. Loaner from Boeing, just taking a decade off, basically, starting last year. When the Secretary or her chief of staff can’t find something on Woogle or doesn’t feel like doing a search herself, I get to explain things to her. And I really wanted to take a look at Xanadu, so I volunteered for this mission. Do you realize how old they are? Most Starfarer civilizations last for one to ten thousand years at most before they either go extinct or become one of the Elder Races. The Tah-Leen have been around over twenty times that long. Two hundred millennia. I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”
“Yeah, I read the briefings. They used to be a big deal until something happened.”
“Something big. They went from ruling hundreds of worlds to being confined to a single system.”
“Any idea why?”
June shook her h
ead. “Their downfall happened during a dark age of sorts, around eighty thousand years ago. Just about every major civilization was destroyed, and lots of technological know-how was lost. Ditto with historical records. The known galaxy still hasn’t fully recovered from that period.”
This talk about ancient civilizations reminded Fromm of their bull sessions during Ob-Serv, when he’d hang out with Brad and June and talk about just that sort of Big Question.
“So what does that make the Imperium, the Puppies and the Wyrms?” he asked, referring to the three most advanced Starfarer cultures.
“They’re most successful primitive barbarians of the lot, I suppose,” June said. “From what historians have been able to piece together, whatever happened was worse than the Fall of Rome. Thousands of star systems went from flying starships to swinging swords. A few minor client species equipped with obsolete cast-offs had to start over.”
“And the Tah-Leen just squatted on their one system and did nothing while that was going down. Doesn’t sound right.”
“Hard to tell. It could be a cultural thing. A vow of non-interference, maybe. Now that they’ve invited us to their sanctum sanctorum, we could find out the truth. If we can learn something from them, it could be worth the trip even if we don’t get them to lift the embargo.”
“It doesn’t sound like the Snowflakes are big on sharing, though.”
She snorted. “Oh, you’re a mean man. Just be careful not to use that slur when you are around the Snowflakes. Don’t want to make them mad.”
Fromm grinned. Heather had come up with the ‘Special Snowflakes’ nickname, and it apparently had quickly spread among the entire delegation after she used it in an email. Everybody was under strict orders not to use it in any official capacity, of course.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be very diplomatic. I took a class and everything.”
“From what I heard, the Marines’ version of diplomacy is to say ‘Nice doggy’ until the snipers find the range.”
“Something like that,” he admitted.
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 68
