by Bobby Adair
Lenox passes an order and one of her people heads for the open assault door.
Brice elbows me. “Don’t worry so much. This isn’t as bad as it seems. If things get hairy, Penny will zip ten or twenty kilometers out, and we’ll be fine.”
I nod. I don’t completely agree, yet I don’t have a good argument against.
“I have survivors,” Jablonsky comms in.
Good. More than good. As much as I was hoping we’d find some, I wasn’t a believer. “Tell them each—”
“Dylan,” interrupts Phil.
“Yes.”
“We can figure it out.”
“Of course.” I go back to spotting targets and aiming my rifle, just when I spot a spindly Gray. I fire. “Silva,” I say, to get her attention, “a Gray.”
She aims her fire at it as well.
“What are you doing?” Phil is back on the line, and he’s agitated.
“You know what I’m doing.”
Silva hits the Gray, and its big head erupts.
“You’re upsetting Nick.”
The ship accelerates toward the survivor Jablonsky found.
I lower my weapon and connect with Silva on a private comm. “Kill all of those you see.”
Phil says, “Dylan, you know you’re close enough I can pick up most of what you say. I don’t need the comm for that.”
“There’s only so much I’ll do to keep your Tick happy,” I tell him.
Chapter 58
It takes most of a day. We recover seventeen, including Jill. Unfortunately, no other member of her bridge crew survives. In the tally of mortality in my head, I tick off two more friends from the grav factory. Along with them, two more bridge crews, and three platoons of forty soldiers each—we paid a substantial price for one Trog cruiser.
The calculus of trading three of our tiny assault ships for one of the Trog’s starfaring leviathans and swapping a hundred and twenty-nine human lives for ten thousand Trogs would work out dramatically in humanity’s favor if it weren’t for us being the species we are. The SDF generals and admirals are self-serving MSS functionaries, and the Free Army’s leadership is little better. Even that might not be a fatal disadvantage if humans were united in their effort, yet we’re still fighting each other, swayed into hating one another by the Grays’ MSS propaganda machine.
It might cost us this war and every generation of human children their freedom.
We make a quick trip back to Iapetus, blinking out of bubble jump and then radioing in to let them know it’s us before they send their defenders up to attack. Two hours later, we’re back in the air with our hydrogen tanks topped off and the magazine for our axial railgun once again full. Even better, we have another thousand rounds packed in cases and jammed into every empty space we can find in the ship.
After hearing about how effective the gun was at blasting Trog cruisers, Spitz’s people were only too happy to give us all we could carry. Spitz even hinted that he was willing to apply pressure on the UN council to outfit two more of our ships with the remaining long-barreled railguns they possessed. With three such ships working together, we could make short work of our Trog infestation.
The only problem? Getting two more Arizona-class ships under my command.
We max grav our way out as soon as we have our load, and bubble jump to the Potato.
It’s a fast journey with our newfound speed.
We pop out of bubble a thousand klicks over the asteroid’s surface.
“Three ships here,” Phil tells me before I can see anything but fading blue.
“Three good ships?” Penny asks. “All functioning?”
“Yes,” Phil answers. “Reactors burning H, grav fields up, though one is damaged. Its defensive field is a mess.”
“How far out?” I ask.
“All three a few klicks above the surface,” answers Phil. “They’re starting to react to us.”
I turn to Jablonsky. “You’re up. Send them the message we discussed. Tarlow, do you have the video ready?”
“Aye, sir.” He embellishes it with a pirate, “Argh!”
I spin on him. “You, too?”
He grins and shrugs.
“Jablonsky, send them Tarlow’s file. Tell those ships to stand down, or we’ll blast them out of the sky. And set up a meeting with whoever is in charge down there.”
Chapter 59
Penny brings the ship in so fast everyone on the bridge cringes for fear of making a new impact crater.
She pulls it up at the last second and drifts to a static point five feet off the asteroid’s surface.
I’m already in the bridge airlock and I swing the door open as we come to a stop. Jumping out, I amplify the asteroid’s weak gravity with my suit’s plates, and my boots pound down in the surface dust amid the roiling cloud pushed out by the Rusty Turd’s powerful fields.
More boots hit the ground around me. Brice, Hawkins, Lenox, Silva, and Phil are on the ground with me in a matter of moments. A squad of six others exits through an assault door. They’re all veterans of our attack on that first Trog cruiser over Arizona—men and women who’ve fought with me and Jill in every skirmish since. We’re as battle-hard-badass as any platoon in the solar system, and we’re brandishing our weapons like we’re ready to shoot down every one of Blair’s coverall-wearing pussies, if not out of necessity, then maybe just for fun.
We’re carrying full loads of ammo, hand grenades, and C4 charges. We fully packed for the violent side of diplomacy and we’re in no mood to fuck about. I’m tired of the Free Army’s petulant incompetence, and I’m ready to preach some come-to-Jesus truth at them or leave them to die when the Trogs come in force to slaughter them in their holes.
With Penny at the helm, the Turd flashes bright blue and accelerates away, giving us all a hard-gravity shove as it leaves.
I don’t need to look up. I feel the ship go.
Penny’s going to a position twenty kilometers up where she’ll wait like a raptor ready to swoop down and kill the three ships that survived Ceres, or the three others that ferried the commanders from the two remaining Free Army outposts. Besides the half-repaired junkers in the Potato’s expansive hangar, those six are the last of the Free Army’s fleet, the pittance of their military might not squandered at the shrine of their incompetence.
“What a bunch of fucking idiots,” muses Brice, as he looks at the sky, echoing for the thousandth time exactly the thoughts zipping through my synapses.
Getting right down to the practicalities, Jill asks, “Inside or out?”
We’re standing among the colony’s surface structures, twenty meters in front of the familiar recreation dome that’s turning into our favorite path in or out of the Potato’s subterranean levels. “Anybody see any movement?”
Nobody’s supposed to be on the surface but us. That’s what the Free Army commanders agreed to before my squads came down.
Now, all of my troops are keeping their eyes sharp and weapons ready, looking for any sign of treachery.
“They’re all inside,” Phil tells me as he employs his enhanced grav sense to scan the area. Having him along almost makes things unfair.
Jill polls our troops, and they concur. We’re alone on the surface.
“Jill,” I tell her, “you stay outside with your squad. Hunker down and don’t hesitate to blast anything that moves. These knuckleheads need to stand by their word, or we’ll make them regret it.”
“Aye, sir. And the airlock?”
I roll my eyes. “Plant the C4. Blow the charges at the first sign of trouble. We’ll be standing inside, well away from the door, on grav tight. We’ll be fine while all the air blows out.”
Brice heads for the airlock door. The rest of us follow.
Chapter 60
It starts badly.
Jill’s squad is outside as planned. The charges are planted. Nothing is wrong there.
The rest of us are inside, under t
he dome, watching the hypnotically slow water dance in the fountain dominating the center of the floor, and we’re alone.
None of us is standing near the door. We’re well off to the side. Me, Phil, and Hawkins have our faceplates open, but our helmets are on. I have my comm open to Penny up in the ship, to Jill outside the dome, and to my team inside. Brice, Lenox, and Silva are all buttoned up, spread along the wall, defensive grav glowing, both hands on their respective weapons. They only need to feel the breath of a threat, and half a heartbeat later they’ll let loose a spray of high-velocity metal on anybody foolish enough to be near.
The Free Army officers have kept us waiting for fifteen minutes, and I’m losing my patience. I know we’re being jerked around by some kind of power maneuver left over from some pre-siege corporate playbook. I look down at my d-pad to confirm the time, and I’m immediately frustrated. I can’t get it to respond to any screen gesture.
Piece of crap!
I glance at Phil. “I’m about ready to bail.”
He shakes his head. “They’re on the way.”
“Were they coming from the other side of the asteroid?”
He shakes his head again and points to his right. “They’ve been down near the end of the hall, arguing with one another.”
“About?”
“Hard to tell with so many of them there and so far away, but I’d say some want to kill us. Others want to make a deal. They think you executed Blair.”
“Do any of them know Blair?” I laugh.
“They’re coming now. Almost here.” Phil nods toward one of the doorways on the opposite side of the dome.
“Ready,” I tell the others as I see bodies in the dim light down the stairs.
I step forward several paces until I’m in the wide, clear walkway near the fountain. Phil stays on my shoulder, Hawkins does, too.
Soldiers in orange file up the stairs, helmets on, faceplates closed, weapons in their hands.
At least they have the good sense to match our readiness posture. Had they come decked out in their blue coveralls, I’d have been tempted to shoot them down because I could get away with it.
“No you wouldn’t,” Phil tells me.
“What?”
Phil casts a disappointed look my way. “You’re not the person you pretend to be half the time.”
That’s when it hits me. “Stop reading my damn thoughts.”
He shrugs and smirks.
“Concentrate on those bastards with the guns. I don’t want to be surprised if one of them decides to kill me.”
“Knowing something’s coming isn’t the same as being able to do something to stop it.”
“Thanks for bestowing your wisdom upon me, oh great sage.”
Phil smiles but doesn’t respond to my sarcasm.
Chapter 61
Twenty soldiers ring the far perimeter by the time they’re all in.
After what somebody thinks is a dramatically sufficient passage of seconds, the three guys in charge come up the stairs to enter the dome.
Like us, the two colonels and one captain are wearing their orange suits, helmets on and faceplates open. One is a young guy with dark hair, mean eyes, and a mustache. His name is Herrera. Another is as pleasant and plain as a mannequin. His eyes remind me of Blair’s, and I remember him. His name is Sokolov. We met him in the hall outside Blair’s office when I invited her to take a ride on my ship.
I don’t like Sokolov, and I don’t trust him.
The last guy towers over the other two and looks to be in charge as he walks up and takes his stand between the others. His wrinkled, brown skin is a stark contrast to his bright, green eyes. His name is Bird.
I decide he’s trustworthy, and I step forward to risk a handshake. “Dylan Kane.”
Bird takes my hand and shakes. Herrera follows, and Sokolov goes last, reluctant and ready to jump away.
“This is Phil, and that’s Colonel Hawkins.” I nod to my three soldiers. “These are my people. Let’s get right down to business. All of you viewed the video I sent of our last engagement?”
“We did,” answers Bird in a deep, rich voice.
“My ship killed four Trog cruisers and disabled three others. As many as the rest of the fleet.” I resist the urge to add, ‘What’s left of it.’
Silent nods.
“You know what my ship and crew did over Arizona,” I tell them.
“Propaganda,” mutters Sokolov.
I ignore him and stay focused on Bird and Herrera. “Everybody knows what my platoon did when we arrived here. We took this place from the Trogs, and we destroyed two more of their ships. Now I know what Blair says about—”
“And what about Colonel Blair?” blurts Sokolov. “You kidnapped her and what, killed her? Ejected her into space?”
“She’s a guest on my ship.”
“A prisoner,” he retorts.
“Exactly, a prisoner,” I confirm. “She’s a great administrator, but she’s gone mental.”
“So what is this?” asks Sokolov, waving a hand toward my soldiers with their guns at the ready.
Bird turns and glares down at Sokolov, who suddenly loses his brave mouth and turns squirrelly.
“Blair,” I tell them, “is a separate problem. But we can waste our time on her and her shit if that’s what you want.”
“You need to free her,” Bird tells me. “Bring her down to the surface, unharmed. Right now.”
I shake my head. “If I wanted to kill her, she’d already be dead. If I wanted to harm her, she’d already be harmed. Right now, the only value she has to me is guaranteeing the safety of my people. When I’m done, you can have her back.”
“Then we have nothing to talk about,” says Bird as he turns to walk away.
I reach out and grab his shoulder. “Don’t.”
He spins back and glares down at me, yet I don’t back down like Sokolov, I look up and match his silent ferocity with my own.
We stand there like that, measuring one another, until he steps back and suffers through a long sigh. “Tell us why you brought your highlight reel here for us to see.”
“So you know who I am,” I answer. “I’m not what the MSS says. I’m not a spy for the SDF or the Trogs. If I am, well, I’d have to be just about the worst damn spy in the world, because I’ve been out killing cruisers while the rest of you lazy jackasses have been hiding in your rocks in the middle of nowhere pretending to have a war.”
Bird’s temper flares magma hot, and he explodes toward me in a flash, bumping his chest to mine and looking down at me with flaring nostrils and wide eyes. “You listen to me you little piece of pig shit. I’ve been out here killin’ Grays since you were still trying to peep at naked girls in the junior high gym shower. I’ve lost my friends and my soldiers. I’ve won my victories and taken my losses. So don’t you think you’re anything special with your three weeks of time in an orange suit, because you don’t have a clue what life out here is really about.”
He retreats to his spot between his two colonels. Everybody is stunned by the outburst except Herrera, who mutters, “He’s no soldier.” He’s talking about me.
I’m puzzled, still looking only at Colonel Bird. “Why didn’t you take charge after Callisto got attacked? Why was Blair running the show?”
“She wasn’t,” says Herrera. “She thought she was.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She took charge,” says Bird. “She announced to everybody within radio range that she was in charge, and given the urgency of the matters at hand, we sent our ships to participate in her attack, knowing we’d all come here afterwards and work out the details of succession.”
“And her plan was a crock,” I say, because somebody needs to. “We lost most of our ships and hundreds of good people for nothing.”
“Not according to your highlight reel,” snipes Sokolov.
“You dumbass,” I tell him. “You are one of Blair
’s toadies aren’t you? Do the math, moron. We killed plenty of Trog soldiers, but we lost most of our fleet. We don’t have the strength to go at them again. Not in that kind of engagement. All we really accomplished was to show them what a danger we are, to bring their attention down on us. So you know what’s going to happen now, as soon as those cruisers of theirs refill their holds, they’re coming after us—not the earth—us. They’re going to root through every asteroid in the belt, and destroy it. They already know this one is here, so you can expect them any day now. And then we’ll have just the two. I doubt they’ll last long. And then we’re lost, because it won’t matter if we have five ships or fifty, if we can’t resupply them, we can’t fight.”
It’s sobering medicine, hearing that everything you worked for is crumbling to shit. That’s what’s going through Bird’s head and Herrera’s thoughts. I don’t need Phil to tell me, yet he does. He plants those thoughts in my head so deftly I almost think they’re my own. He also tells me that Sokolov is exactly what he seems to be, a liar in Blair’s service. He’ll stab me in the back at first chance.
“You didn’t come down here for lecture time,” says Bird. “Why are we all here?”
I laugh as my goals morph into something unexpected. “I came down here to tell all of you what a bunch of knuckleheads you are, and that your only chance of making this revolution work is to get behind me. I came down here to tell you I was taking charge of this clown car.”
Herrera laughs out loud.
Sokolov glares daggers at me.
“But?” asks Bird, offended, but hiding it well.
I look over at Phil. I know he knows what I’m thinking. I know he’s already evaluating Bird as deeply as is possible given that Bird doesn’t have a bug in his head.
Phil tells me what I need to know by giving me a slight nod.
“What was that?” asks Bird, on edge.
I look Bird in the eye and say, “I think you should be in charge of the Free Army.”
