The Feeding of Sorrows

by Rob Howell

  Edmonds held up his hand. “You’re not going, George.”

  “What!?” The lieutenant jumped up. Then, with difficulty, he sat back down and squeezed out a tight, “Sir, I most respectfully request you reconsider. I’m good at my job, and you’ll need me.”

  “You’re damn good, actually. You’re a credit to your family. Our family. You have honored the name George Edmonds. However, this is the hardest part of this job.”

  “What is, sir?” came the icy response.

  “Making choices. And I’m making this choice. One of us has to stay. There’s a good chance whoever is after us will succeed and essentially destroy us. The trap is cunning, and I have to accept the possibility that I’ll fail.”

  “That’s why I must go!”

  “No, son. That’s why you can’t go.” Edmonds looked out the window for a long time. “Even if we lose everyone I’m planning to take, including the Huron and the Algonquin, we’ll still have Owen Sound. We’ll still have the ancestral house on Jarvis. We’ll still have a name. One of us has to stay and rebuild this unit. We owe it to the Hilden to try, if not to the memory of your namesake.”

  “Sir—”

  The colonel held up a hand. “I have to be the one to go. I won’t put the soldiers who trusted me in harm’s way without being at their side. It’s not how I am. It’s not how you are.”

  “I understand you have to go, but I should go too. The honor of our family is at stake, and you’ll need all hands on deck. I’ll give you a better shot at coming back as a unit, sir.” Lieutenant Edmonds was almost begging.

  “You’re right in many ways, son.” Edmonds sighed. “But I need to know I’m not risking everything on one throw of the dice. I need to know there’s a chance I’m not throwing it all away.”

  “But—”

  “You’ll understand someday, son. You’ll find out just how hard it is to send men into combat. You’ll find out just how hard it is not to dither, not to waffle, because you care about them so incredibly much. We’ve pounded into you just how important it is to decide, even if it’s the wrong decision. If I don’t know there’s a hole card, a chance for the Foresters to survive my death, I’m that much more likely to fuck this up.”

  The harsh words echoed in the quiet room.

  The lieutenant balled his fists and rose. “Then, sir, I request leave to make the arrangements I must to put our family’s tradition on the line since I won’t be there.”

  “Permission granted.”

  The lieutenant turned precisely and went to the door.

  “George, I’m having dinner with your mother and sister this evening.” His voice wavered. “Please join us.”

  George kept his back to his father. Eventually, he muttered, “As the colonel commands.”

  Then he left.

  Edmonds wiped the tears from his eyes. Then he opened a comm signal. “Sunray Actual to Huron Actual.”

  After a few moments, the reply came, “Huron Actual to Sunray Actual. How can I serve our illustrious leader?”

  “Captain Christopher, you can initiate Contingency Plan Mount Pleasant. Repeat Contingency Plan Mount Pleasant.”

  The pause was longer than was normal with the lightspeed lag. “Confirm Contingency Plan Mount Pleasant.”

  “Confirmed.”

  “We’ve got shuttle flights in transit. It’ll take us at least eight hours to get everything offloaded and get our shuttles back into their cradles.”

  “Understood. We’re not leaving for a few weeks.”

  “Good.” Christopher sighed. “You had me going, sir.”

  “We have the time to do it right. Make sure your missile magazines are full and you have a full stock of replacement parts. You’re authorized to requisition anything you need to improve the Huron’s combat readiness. Time does matter, but grab everything you think might be useful.”

  “Got it, sir.”

  “Also, replace as many shuttles with dropships as you can fit into the Huron’s bay. Make sure we can still drop an entire company wearing CASPers in a single drop, though.”

  “Yes, sir. What about our obligations to the Hilden?”

  “I’m coming with you, so I can officially invoke clause Twelve-India with the attendant subclauses of our contract.”

  “You’re sure, sir?”

  “Yes. Any questions?”

  “A tonne, sir. But I’ve got work to do.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After disconnecting, Edmonds dialed another number.

  The Lyon’ face appeared on his monitor. “Colonel Edmonds? To what do I owe the honor?”

  “I need a couple of favors.”

  “Yeah,” the Lyon said with a sigh, “I bet you do.”

  “Been an interesting time for the Foresters lately.”

  “For all of us, but that’s not important. What do you need?”

  “I need a ship to pass through the Maquon system. Not one of mine. I need it to find out all it can about my base on Maquon.”

  The Lyon didn’t answer for a long while. “I can arrange that, but if you’re asking for that, you’re worried about something. That’s especially true given what you’ve dealt with lately. Usually, when a merc leader worries about something, MAC rounds follow.”

  “Not us. We use 12.7mm HEAT.” Edmonds’ smile didn’t touch his eyes.

  The Lyon chuckled. “Whatever.”

  “You’re right to worry. Name your price, including combat risk.”

  “That ain’t fair. You’re supposed to insult me with a lowball offer, then I’m supposed to piss you off by being greedy.” His smile turned grim.

  “Time is a factor.”

  “I bet it is.” The Lyon named a figure.

  “Agreed, if you can get the info to me in sixteen days.”

  “Gonna be tight,” the bartender mused, “but I think I can do it. How about eighty percent now and the rest if we deliver on time?”

  “Done. Also, I need an in-system tramp freighter whose captain I can count on.”

  “Same exciting live-fire potential?”

  “To be fair, it’s more likely they’ll get shot at than the other ship since they’ll be part of the response team. We might have to launch dropships directly from her. And I can’t guarantee there won’t be space combat.”

  “Hmmm. Let me check.” He looked at his system. “Garrison just gated in and is scheduled to arrive in Earth orbit in two days. She’s the captain of the Cabot, a Comal-class. She’s tough, smart, and mostly dependable.”

  “Mostly?”

  “She’ll cut you to the bone with her rates. Cheat you outrageously if she can. You’d better negotiate for real with her. If you need her now, and she’s got cargo lined up, there’ll be a sizable buyout, and you’ll have to pay it. But she’ll do what she promises once she’s on the job. She’s seen MAC rounds fly, and the Cabot has a few surprises. She won’t leave you in a lurch.”

  “Do I have a better option?”

  “Yeah, but not one I can get in the next week.”

  “Fine. Broker a contract with her. Pay any buyout. I want her over Owen Sound as soon as she off-loads her current cargo.”

  The Lyon’s eyes hardened. “Speed’s more important than money? You’ve been one of the most money-conscious units around for years. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “It might be. I’ll know after the first ship gets back. If we hear what I think we might, we’ll need time to prepare, and I want us to be ready to go as soon as we get the intel. Best case, this is a drill we haven’t run in years, and I’ve spent some of George’s inheritance. Worst case…”

  “Yeah.” The Lyon paused. “Does this have anything to do with your lads who came here in February?”

  “I can’t honestly confirm that. However…”

  “Yeah, I get that too. Fine, I’ll take care of you with Garrison. She owes me a favor, and this is as good a time as any to collect. She’ll actually be perfect for the job, altho
ugh I can neither confirm nor deny that the occasional hot drop has launched from her ship.”

  “Good.”

  The Lyon thought for a second. “And I’ll see if I can’t arrange a legitimate cargo to Maquon.”

  “Good idea,” agreed the colonel.

  “It’d cost something extra, but we might be able to hide your load on her manifest.”

  “An even better idea. If you can arrange it, I’ll pay for it.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Garrison will make money on it, I’ll make sure of that.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. It wasn’t you who shot my men.” Edmonds filled the empty silence.

  “Rosey, you don’t get to tell me what debts I owe,” the Lyon snapped. The bartender’s hand hovered over the button. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  The Lyon clicked off.

  Edmonds glanced out the window again. The clouds weren’t going anywhere. He turned back to his comm and tapped in his home number. Now to tell Jennifer.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 28 – Kal’shin Tahnerif

  Forward Base Maquon

  Near Jeriasker, Maquon

  “Kal’shin?”

  “May the Slyest Prey take your soul to the swamps! What now?” snapped Tahnerif, his snout buried in his pad and a pile of print outs.

  Akuwin leaned into the office. “I want to speak with you.”

  The kal’shin stretched. “It would be a welcome relief if you did, Akuwin. I need a break from paperwork.”

  Akuwin’s tongue lolled out. “Such glories fall upon the leader. Especially if you add grumpy puppies like Qarsh and Fahrissthan to the pile.”

  “Indeed,” replied Tahnerif with a huff. “Do you have a report for me?”

  “I do.” Akuwin’s muzzle tightened. “I have, perhaps, the worst news possible.”

  “You didn’t find anything?”

  “No. I found many things. They all suggest we’ve been tricked by the Slyest Prey.” She pulled out her pad. “I found no hint of the massacre in the Foresters’ records. I did find a video of the Trackers surrendering, but it’s completely different than the one we saw.”

  “Show me.”

  Akuwin activated the Tri-V. The scene was much the same as the one Streetho had given them. The same quality picture, wobbly and grainy, clearly from a camera mounted on a CASPer. The same tactics. The same weapons.

  But it told a completely different tale. At the end of the battle, the Foresters gathered the Zuul’s weapons and escorted them back to the base. There, the troopers led them into a large gymnasium where the Foresters clearly intended to hold them. Cots and stacks of blankets lined one wall. Stacks of supplies leaned against another, including boxes of standard Merc Guild prisoner ration packs.

  “As you can see, the Foresters acted honorably at the end of the battle. They accepted the surrender properly and were prepared to hold our kinsmen according to the rules of the guild. Furthermore…” Akuwin pressed a button.

  The Tri-V’s display shifted to a scene of the Zuul mercs, still in the gymnasium. They lounged, clearly bored, even though they had exercise equipment, access to readers, and a Tri-V to play Zuul movies.

  “We have many days of video much like this,” added Akuwin.

  “Could the video be faked?”

  Akuwin touched her forepaws. “I have found no evidence of that. These videos are as provably true as the one Streetho showed us. I haven’t found a loop. No section repeats, so all of it is either generated or factual and there’s a lot of it. Plus, we’ve identified most of our kinsmen in the video, and they’re all part of the Trackers.”

  Tahnerif wrinkled his muzzle. “May the Great Hunter forgive us.”

  Akuwin’s tail drooped. “There’s more.”

  “Oh?”

  The rei’shin pulled up a series of cargo shuttle manifests. “According to these, the Foresters used their shuttles to help lift the Corsairs off Maquon. Not only do we have those manifests, we have fuel and maintenance records that indicate those shuttles made several ground-to-orbit flights.”

  “No holes?”

  “No, sir. If there’s a cover-up, it’s buried so deep in the swamp the Slyest Prey might not find it.”

  “By the Great Hunter, I don’t like this.” Tahnerif bared his fangs. “Someone is playing us for idiots.”

  Akuwin’s tail drooped even further.

  “There’s even more?” demanded Tahnerif.

  “Yes, sir. The Foresters are smart. They used their visits to the Nightprowler to gather as much intel on her as they could. I found a description in the files.” Akuwin pulled a document to the front of the screen. Tahnerif’s tail drooped as he realized that whoever had written the description had definitely seen the Nightprowler.

  They also had a number of pictures of the Zuul ship. Most of them came from another ship, probably one of the Foresters’ destroyers. Worse, they had managed to obtain a grainy image of the interior of the Nightprowler’s shuttle bay with the name easily readable on the back wall.

  Tahnerif bared his teeth. “This just gets swampier. What do you plan to do?”

  “I want to interrogate the shuttle pilots and ground crews. Even though it’s been nearly eight Human years since those events happened, it’s possible some of them remember lifting our kin off the planet.”

  “It’s worth an attempt. Might as well interrogate all the Humans to see if they remember that contract.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t like what I think is going on, but thank you for your attention to your duty.”

  “I wanted you to see this. It might help with Qarsh and Fahrissthan.”

  “Thank you. I have kept them as busy as I can, but…”

  “Forting up is boring work, especially for them.”

  “Indeed.” Tahnerif’s tongue lolled out slightly.

  “I’ll continue to search. We found these things quickly, as they aren’t in secure areas on their network. There are secure areas we haven’t yet breached, but our techs believe they’re making progress.”

  “Keep them at it.”

  “As you wish, sir. But…” Akuwin sighed. “If the Foresters did this and covered it up, they did it well. Look at the images. That’s exactly what we’d look like if someone cooped us up for a few days. That’s definitely the Nightprowler. And the roster matches. If everything is fake, they had incredible intel on the Trackers.”

  Tahnerif slammed his paw on the table. “Curse the Slyest Prey for making me a fool!”

  “It’s not conclusive, sir. It could all be a plant.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Streetho lied to us. Or, at the very least, what she showed us was false. She might have been fooled as well.”

  “That seems unlikely. She’s not the type to get fooled.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “It is, but I think we know better.”

  Akuwin hung her head. “Yes, sir. I think we do.”

  “Don’t stop looking for any hint that Streetho’s video is real.”

  “I won’t. I’m going to run through these videos and look for editing. We’ll eventually get through their security. We’ll interview the prisoners. If it’s there, we’ll find it.” She paused. “Do you think they’re coming to take back the base?”

  “I do. We’ve been here too long without seeing any of their ships.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that, too, sir.” Akuwin hesitated. “What are you going to do when they come back?”

  Tahnerif bared his teeth. “Ask me after I spend some time chatting with the Great Hunter. And remind me to feed Streetho a rocket when we see her again.”

  “Why don’t you let me feed her a rocket when I get to her, and I’ll tell you about the satisfactory splotch she made on the wall?”

  “I’d have to put you on report for taking the pleasure away from me.”

  “I’ve done PT for worse reasons, sir.”

&n
bsp; “Me too, Akuwin. Me too.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 29 – Rick Blaine

  Foresters Headquarters,

  Billy Bishop Airport, Owen Sound

  “I need to speak with Colonel Edmonds.”

  The corporal at the desk pressed a button. “Mr. Blaine is here to see you, sir.” He nodded at the response. “Colonel Edmonds is busy. He asks if this is crucial.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He repeated my answer into the intercom and nodded again. “Very well, Colonel Edmonds will spare you a few minutes.” He ushered me into the office.

  Edmonds still didn’t have a hair out of place, yet lines surrounded his eyes, and he clearly hadn’t gotten much sleep.

  “Colonel Edmonds, I’m sorry to trouble you, but I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “I’d appreciate some answers, myself.”

  “Maybe I can give you some. First, tell me about the Cimaron 283133-6A contract.”

  “It’s in the public record. Can’t you find it?” he snapped. “I really am busy.”

  “I know, but I think it’s important.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking about the Six-Alfa contract? It doesn’t seem terribly relevant.”

  “Colonel, I ask that you bear with me.”

  He thought for a moment. “I trust you won’t waste my time.”

  “No, sir. I’m not interested in what’s on the record. What I want to know is how you got the contract. Did you go seeking it?”

  “Is this important?”

  “Yes.”

  He shrugged and leaned back. “If I remember right, I had a couple of full-strength platoons available. I tagged them as up for hire on the Merc Guild database. Is that what you mean?”

  “Not exactly. Did you contact Kukuluki or any Zuparti when trying to get that job?”

  He shook his head. “No, it came through the Merc Guild.”

  “From Peepo?”

  “I suppose. We didn’t deal with her directly, but we did make the arrangements at Karma-IV.”

  “That’s what I figured.”