by Rick Partlow
“But if they see that fucking armor,” I took the thread back up after a sip of Diet Coke—I brought my own supply on board every mission, “that’s all it’ll take for them to understand the advantage it could give them. And if they can’t copy it themselves, they’ll use the Helta engineers they’ve taken as slaves and have them do it. Or they’ll get the Russians to help them.” I sighed. “The longer this thing drags on, the tougher they’re going to be. I was really hoping the Battle of Helta Prime might have attrited their forces enough that we wouldn’t have to deal with them for a while.”
“The Battle of Helta Prime?” Julie repeated, cocking an eyebrow in amusement. “You made that up just now, didn’t you?”
“Hey, we gotta call it something,” I protested, shrugging. “What’s your suggestion?”
“I’m not the writer,” she reminded me, leaning into my shoulder harder. “But that sounds like something from your TV show.”
“Oh, good God,” I moaned, “don’t remind me. I’d almost managed to forget that thing existed.”
“I bet you don’t forget when the mortgage comes due on that house in Vegas, Hollywood Boy.”
“That house in Vegas doesn’t have a mortgage,” I said, leaning back on her, “for which I am very grateful, but I just hate thinking about the way they trashed the science in my science fiction.”
“Oh, you mean they added ridiculous things like artificial gravity and hyperspace?”
“Touché,” I acknowledged.
Then I looked up and realized that Olivera and Brooks were staring at us with expressions that might have been amused, or annoyed, or both.
“Not to interrupt,” Olivera said, his tone dry enough to use for kindling, “but I’d like to have some idea of what I’m going to tell the President when we arrive in-system in….” He checked his watch. “Shit, in an hour!”
“Tell him we did the best we could, got him back his starship,” I suggested. “And we were damned lucky to do that without getting anyone killed.” I rubbed at the remembered pain in my chest, very grateful for the medical technology the Helta had shared with us. “And that part was pretty damned close.”
“Yes, I heard,” Brooks rumbled, leaning back in her chair and giving me the stinkeye. “You do know you’re a major now, right, Major? You have privates and corporals to do this sort of thing for you. You shouldn’t be charging into Russian mercenaries and leading with your chin. That Svalinn armor doesn’t come with a big red ‘S’ on its chest, the last I checked.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, grinning.
I’d heard it all from Pops right after he’d come back from engineering to check on us. Engineering had been a dry hole because no one had bothered to stake it out; there wasn’t enough fuel left to sail the ship, so the Russians hadn’t seen the point. It had all been a bit anticlimactic after that, just a matter of getting the fuel loaded onto the ship and the flight crew in place while Olivera and the Jambo held off the defense boats. We’d all been back in hyperspace within an hour and then it was just a matter of hopping out briefly to check the Horse With No Name’s systems and back in again with no stops till home.
“What can we tell him?” Julie asked. “This wasn’t our fuck up. If they hadn’t wanted to keep the Tevynian around as a dog-and-pony show for Congress and the Coalition partners, we could have handed him off to the Helta and been done with him. Now, not only do they know where we are and who we are, they know where our weak spots are.”
“Maybe we’re worrying for nothing,” Brooks said, pointing with her fork for emphasis. “I mean, it’s not like the Tevynians are artists at political manipulation. Worst case scenario, they copy the armor and they come to the Solar System. But they were hit hard at Helta Prime, like you said. If we can get the Alliance behind us, get a few ships to help us out, I think we can take them, easy. As for the Chinese and the Russians, well, we got the ship back and they don’t have a shitload of assets to throw at us. I mean, once they see we got the ship back and their plan didn’t work, wouldn’t they want to keep this quiet as much as we do? If they admit what they did, it might weaken us, but it’ll sure as hell make people pissed off at them.”
She punctuated her last remark by eating the last bite of beef stroganoff on her plate.
“As long as no one starts flapping their gums, I think we’ll be okay.”
***
“Oh, I think I might have been a bit too optimistic,” Dani Brooks admitted, staring at the news broadcast displayed on the main screen of the Jambo.
Everything had seemed fine when we jumped out into cislunar space. The Horse With No Name had popped out right behind us, which had been a great relief to Olivera because he’d still been keyed up about the possibility that the Tevynians or the Chinese had left some sort of Trojan Horse virus or undetectable sabotage on board the ship that would blow up in our faces when the crew took her into hyperspace.
Then the first transmissions from Earth hit us like a big splash of muddy water in the face. I questioned Olivera’s decision to put them on the main screen, but he was the commander and I guess he trusted the crew not to panic.
I knew the CNN talking head personally, having had the misfortune to be in the same studio when I’d done an interview about the United Stars TV series. He was five-foot-four and 150 pounds of ego in an expensive suit and a more expensive haircut and just seeing him put me in a bad mood. His big, puffy face and goatee floated beside video of a demonstration At first, I couldn’t even tell where it was, there was just a sea of humanity. Then the camera zoomed out, showing the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool in the background and I whistled softly. I hadn’t seen a crowd that big in DC for quite a while.
“The demonstrations have been almost continuous since the news leaked three days ago,” Geoff Weitzer, the talking head, reported. “While criticism of President Crenshaw’s handling of this matter has been harsh among congressional Democrats, and there’s been talk of impeachment hearings, there is no mistaking the mood of the demonstrations. The people in these crowds place the blame squarely on China.”
They did the predictable thing, a thing most people were wise to now, but they still did it. They picked the most inflammatory member of the crowd they could find, the biggest dumbass at the demonstration, a fat-bellied redneck with an American flag cape and a sign that read “the only goode Commy is a ded Commy,” put him on camera, and urged him to say the first thing that came to his little head.
“Them Chinese need to be nuked from orbit,” he declared, wild-eyed. “It’s the only way to be sure.”
“It’s not a bad line,” Adams murmured. “I love that movie.”
I didn’t quite laugh, just sort of grunted involuntarily. If I hadn’t been head over heels in love with Julie, I would have asked Lt. Adams to marry me.
Wiener…I mean Weitzer reappeared in place of Captain Redneck, general disapproval on his pinched face, unless it was constipation.
“The mood across the nation is shock, disbelief, and above all else, anger. Anger at the President for the lax security that allowed this to happen, anger at the military, but most of all, anger at China and Russia for hijacking one of four starships controlled by President Crenshaw’s Coalition of Nations and taking it, it is believed, to try to negotiate a deal with the Tevynians.”
An artist’s conception of a Tevynian popped on screen, looking more than anything like the drummer in a Swedish death metal band.
“These, the human-like species who our new allies, the Helta, claim are the aggressors in a decades-old war, have become our enemy as well as theirs. But some believe we are on the wrong side in this war, that the Crenshaw administration has committed us to an unjust war against an oppressed people who are merely fighting for their right to equal footing with a colonial power bent on exploiting them.”
“Oh, Judas Priest on a pogo stick,” Olivera said. “I really hate that little prick.”
“Join the club,” I told him. “It’s large, bu
t distinguished.”
Weitzer’s face pinched even more and I thought for a moment that his head was about to collapse into a black hole.
“And while there has been talk of impeachment here at home, among the other nations of President Crenshaw’s Coalition, there is unease and discontent. Some officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have heard rumblings that their governments might withdraw from the Coalition unless there is more accountability, while others blame this on the Polish government for allowing Russian mercenaries to infiltrate their technical crews assigned to work at the drydocks in Lunar orbit.”
“Anonymous sources are so helpful,” Brooks said. “My anonymous sources say that CNN has the best anonymous sources.”
I eyed her sidelong. That was almost funny and I wondered if I was a bad influence on the colonel.
“But most worrisome,” Weitzer said, “are the calls for open war against China, such as this statement on the House floor by Congressman James Yule of Arkansas.”
Yule was a big man, with the ruddy, weathered face of a lumberjack past his prime and the voice of a drivetime DJ from the 1990s.
“What good are all these high-tech toys the Helta gave us if we can’t use them to defend ourselves from aggression right here on Earth?” They’d caught Yule in media res, and I wondered what the unedited quote would sound like when I listened to it. “China should be held responsible for this act of war.”
The talking head reappeared, as if Weitzer couldn’t bear for his own likeness to be off screen very long. Thankfully, he seemed to be wrapping up the report.
“So far, the Crenshaw administration has not commented on the Congressman’s statement, nor have they made any public statements about their intentions in regard to China’s actions. Chairman Xiang, meanwhile, has denied any involvement in the hijacking of the starship and continues to insist this is all subterfuge to justify American aggression against their peaceful country. President Popov of Russia has gone on record as saying that if any Russian citizens were involved, they were acting of their own accord and had no affiliation with the Federation military.”
“Sir,” Lt. Adams said, sudden urgency in her voice, “we have a priority transmission from the White House.”
“We also have a shuttle breaking orbit,” David said, leaning forward as if he could see the holographic display better from a few inches closer.
“One of ours?” Adams asked, looking alarmed.
“As far as I know, Lt. Adams,” Olivera told her, “we’re the only people making them.” His face clouded over, then he nodded as if to himself. “Put the President on the main screen.”
Shit. That was ballsy. If it was a sensitive transmission, Crenshaw might not want it out in the open for the whole bridge crew. Still, he hadn’t said it was sensitive, just priority.
The face that appeared on the screen wasn’t Crenshaw’s, though, it was Tommy Caldwell’s, and he didn’t look happy.
“General Olivera,” he said, “as you might have noticed, things are a bit hectic here. There’s been a leak…which, of course there’s been a leak.” He shook his head and closed his eyes for a beat before continuing. “It’s DC. Once we informed the House Intelligence Committee, it was almost a given there would be leak. The President is up to his eyeballs in shit and doesn’t need the James Bowie stirring the mixture.
“The shuttle heading your way is carrying Assistant Secretary of State Garcia, among others. Transfer your prisoners to the shuttle, then the President wants you to head directly for the conference with the Alliance.” He raised a hand to forestall any objection that might be coming. “I know it’s not fair to your crew, particularly the ground troops. You just returned from high-risk combat, had to come back and deal with Chernobog and then go right back out to retrieve the ship. But the President would rather none of you are ambushed by the press while visiting your loved ones, and God willing, once we get the official vote and Earth’s place in the Alliance is cemented, this will all quiet down.”
“Are you certain this is a good time for the Jambo to be light-years away, sir?” Olivera wondered. “Besides the security situation dirtside, well…we know the Tevynians took the Chinese somewhere and according to the GRU officer we captured, the Chinese diplomats were singing like little stool pigeons.”
“This is too valuable an opportunity for us to waste,” Caldwell insisted. “We’re going to rush the fitting of weapons to the ship you retrieved. Between the ship and the defense platforms the Helta helped us build, we’ll have at least some protection from a possible attack.”
“The Tevynians know where we are,” I said, and Caldwell’s eyes flickered my way. So did Olivera’s, but I went on anyway, because someone had to say it and Caldwell had to hear it. “An attack isn’t just possible. Sure as shit, it’s going to happen.”
Chapter Eight
The Werewolf of London. That was what the Skrith reminded me of.
“Pardon me,” the translator said in my ear, moments after the guttural sounds of Anu Neeme Klas’ speech, “you said something about wolves in a city?”
Oops. I hadn’t realized I’d said any of that out loud and I couldn’t think of any way to climb out of that hole, but Roberto Garcia came to my rescue, smooth as a used car salesman.
“Major Clanton was referencing a work of literature from our culture, Ambassador Anu,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing just a bit tighter than he had to. “It speaks of a grand vista such as the one on which your city is built.”
It was true, the vista was quite grand. The Skrith homeworld, which they called Kritiana, or at least that was the phonetic spelling we’d used to represent a word I don’t believe a human mouth could pronounce correctly, was bigger than Earth by nearly half, but had the same gravity due to lighter minerals in the core. But it had about the same amount of water, which meant a lot of this world was high and dry. Most of the water, along with all the thicker vegetation, was at the bottoms of deep canyons, where the rivers drained into inland seas.
It would have made sense to live down there where the water was, where the plants grew and the herd animals that ate them congregated, but the Skrith, apparently, didn’t go for the easy way, because they built their cities on the plateaus, the highlands. That was what our translator had told us was the English equivalent of the Skrith name for the city unfolding below us: Highland. It was nothing a human would have built, and distinct from the Helta aesthetic as well. The Helta built in and around the trees, adjusting their living space to accommodate the giant sequoias, but the Skrith carved their homes out of the rock, and not like the cliff dwellings back on Earth. Highland was a work of art, a sculpture by one of the masters, as if Rodin himself had happened upon Monument Valley and decided he wanted to turn one of the mesas into a city.
The primary star—someone had told me what their name for it was and I had totally forgotten, but it was a G-type, I remembered that much—was setting, turning the city and the rock it was carved from deep orange, almost glowing from within. We were sailing toward it in an airship, a genuine, honest-to-goodness lighter-than-air airship, its gasbag looming above us, cylindrical and white and about a hundred yards long. The gondola was open, and the breeze coming in off the plateau smacked me in the face with the chill of the high desert in winter.
It was breathtaking and nearly worth the hour long trip from their spaceport, which had seemed excessive. But despite the majestic views and the winking stars rising in the darkness of the far horizon, I just couldn’t take my eyes off the Skrith, particularly the ambassador they’d sent to accompany us. Anu Neeme Klas wasn’t wearing an upper-class British leisure suit and didn’t actually look like Henry Hull in the 1935 horror movie, but it was damned close. The widow’s peak and slicked back hair, the pointed ears, the jutting jaw with the canines coming over his upper lip when he closed his mouth, the bushy eyebrows…it was uncanny. And I guess it made sense if you considered the Elders had, at some point tens or hundreds of thousands
of years in the past, taken wolves, or maybe dire wolves, from Earth and done genetic experiments on them to make them humanoid.
It was the why of it all that fascinated me. Why bears and wolves and monitor lizards and octopus? They had humans, who were already humanoid, and they took some of us at some point not all that long ago. Why had they bothered with the mad-scientist lab experiments? Were we not good enough?
Or maybe, and this was a theory I was becoming more and more convinced of as the time went by, this was a test of some kind. Not for them, but for us. I hadn’t even told Julie about this one because it sounded way too wild, and I knew she’d make fun of me for being a shitty pulp science fiction writer. I could see it in her eyes looking at me from near the railing, gently mocking even though she couldn’t know what I was thinking. Well, maybe she was looking at me like I was an idiot because I’d called the Skrith ambassador the Werewolf of London to his face.
Yeah, that might have been it.
“Are you fucking nuts?” Garcia murmured next to my ear, maintaining a pleasant salesman’s smile for the Skrith. “Do you want to start an interspecies incident?”
“It sounds so dirty when you say it like that,” I told him, unwilling to pretend to be apologetic to the man because he hadn’t earned it. As much as I had sometimes found Delia Strawbridge officious and annoying, she’d proven herself a tough customer who knew how to negotiate from strength and I’d respected her. I missed her, though I never thought I would.
I walked away from Garcia before he could figure out how to curse at me and still sound like everything was right with the world, and sought out Olivera, who was probably just as miffed with me but would be more honest about it.
