She raised an eyebrow. “Hurt me again?”
I ignored the question with a kiss.
Havelock II
Alliance Security, Human Affairs division.
It was an old, three kilometer long warship, obsolete the moment it was made. Captured during the Liberation, the Alliance weren’t ones to waste. It was refitted as an office building, detention center, and armory. Maybe it was excessive to work out of a battleship. More than once though, I was glad of self-repairing, diamondoid hulls.
I watched the Story Teller through the one-way glass. She sat at a table in a small, stark, room. One of the boys from Counter Terrorism was seated opposite her. Their mouths moved and silence tumbled out, the volume was down.
“This is the real one, right?”
“Yes,” said Yuri.
“We’re being very careful with her,” a thin, pale fellow who was all smiles. Costanza was his name, he was a good sort. I had worked with him last year at Guerilla Weapons. He was probably one of the best interrogators we had.
“Bloody hope so, she’s my suspect. So she’s said nothing?”
“This one has said nothing,” said Costanza. “But my team has been running three brain imprints. Two were wrecked, but the third one finally cracked about an hour ago. It’s deeply bothered and wanted to absolve itself. That’s when this came up,” he waved me a file of interrogation transcripts. I skimmed it, a transparency of blue words overlaid my vision.
“Is this accurate?”
“As far as we know,” Constanza.
“How could – how could we have not known about this?”
“We called you as soon as we found out,” said Yuri.
“Who else knows?”
“My partner Teska is briefing the Director right now in person, I didn’t want digital copies of this getting mass mailed around, please keep that one to yourself.”
“This gets out it’ll cause a panic.”
Constanza shook his head. “Director Chalmers is going to have to pass this on upwards.”
“Are you kidding me? It’ll tear the fleet apart.”
“He doesn’t have a choice. This is bigger than us, and things will be a lot worse if it gets out that we knew and didn’t tell Fleet or the Council. This is fleet-wide, the response will be fleet-wide.”
“Has she given us any leads? Contacts? Places?”
“Nothing much yet, she’s quite senior but she’s not involved in planning attacks. She disapproves of this which is why we’re making any inroads. She wants to see this stopped.”
“When can I talk to her?”
“My man in there is almost done with her.”
I looked over the transcripts again, reading them more closely.
They were building antimatter bombs.
Vidya I
Vidya fiddled with the key, but found the door to her home already unlocked.
“Amit?” she stepped in from the street it was dark inside the small house. “Amit, why is the front door unlocked?” She turned on the lights.
It was a modest home. The adobe walls were painted white with UEF surplus, self-healing emulsion. Several cans were stacked neatly in a corner with a pair of roller brushes. The wooden window and door frames were bright blue – Amit’s favorite color. He had drawn on a wall, happy stick figures holding hands. There were two unsteady chairs at an old, wooden, table. It bore a chipped fruit bowl and a faded framed picture. From it smiled a long dead mother and the man who’d beaten her.
In another corner were two straw beds. One as messy as the rushed morning had been. The other was carefully made, its blue sheets, crisp. Its guardians were a teddy bear; a coloring book; and a Droptrooper action figure.
Sitting on the bed, was a grown man.
“You!”
“Good afternoon, Vidya,” he smiled and crossed his legs like women do. “How are you today?”
“How dare you come to my home like this! Where is my brother?”
“He’s fine Vidya, I sent him outside to play with his friends. I thought you and I could have a private conversation.”
“I’ve told you to keep away from here.”
“You missed a drop. We were concerned.”
“I was working that night, the madam rescheduled me. It was unexpected; I had to cover for another girl.”
“Well that’s settled then. We can’t keep the Occupiers short on hookers, can we?”
“What do you want, Zoheb?”
“I’m here in part about Claudia. In your last message to us, you said that she was a risk.”
“She’s more than a risk. She’s pathetic. I don’t know why you ever recruited her.”
“She doesn’t miss drops.”
“She’s terrible at this. Who found her? She just asks them, directly. ‘Why have the patrols changed? Who is this new officer? What date is the police volunteers’ graduation?’ I can hear her through the fucking walls. Then she comes and talks to me, painting a target right on my forehead. What happens if the MPs pick her up in a random sweep? What if Intelligence does a sting? Then let’s see who makes the drop.”
“We’ll talk to her.”
“Good.”
This new patron interests us, the giant. Tell me about him.”
“His name is Jack Diamond, and he has a rank in the fleet.”
“He’s an officer?”
“No, he holds a rank. Executive Officer of the planet carrier, Washington.”
“I’m not familiar with the Washington. In what fleet is it?”
“It’s own. It’s the headquarters for a special program. Their mandate is to – I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Well, tell me how they describe it.”
“They’re trying to find what they call a ‘Xeno Transcendent.’ Like one of their machine overlords, but on our side.”
“It’s amazing the nonsense they’ll put resources behind. What else do you know about this, Jack Diamond? Why is he so different from the others?”
“He’s a civilian contractor. It’s unclear why they have him, but he has a lot of power. He does whatever he wants, and no one seems able to stop him. A senior officer is his patron.”
“Try and get close to Diamond. See what you can learn.”
“I can’t stand him, and he knows it.”
“Isn’t that normal in your line of work? Find out whatever you can about the Washington’s mission.”
“Fine. Is that all?”
The man picked up the Droptrooper action figure, turning it this way and that.
“A gift from one of your clients?”
She snatched it from him.
“None of your business is what it is.”
“We couldn’t help noticing that you send your baby brother to an Occupation school.”
“The lunch is better, and there’s no course on Martyrdom. What do you care what school I send my brother to? I give you information. I’m the best you’ve got, aren’t I? That’s all you should care about.”
“There is no prayer there.”
“We pray at home.”
“So we’ve noticed. When was the last time you’ve been to the temple?”
“I don’t know, a while ago.”
“Communion keeps us strong.”
“Why do you care if I’ve been praying?”
“I only asked when you were last at the temple. Not if you had stopped praying.”
“Well I have. So? Many people don’t.”
“Yes. But now many more people don’t. Doctors. Teachers. Children who go to Occupation schools. People who used to pray, before.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Were you at any point given what they call, a ‘nano-medical’ or ‘nano-immunity’ injection?”
“Yes, a few months ago. UEF rules for licensed sex workers. I can’t have a fuck, unless it’s a safe one.”
His face became grave.
“This is the reason.”
“What?”
“The injection, it blocks communion. It sunders you from the rest of us. Vidya, It will drain your soul away, and leave you a damned husk.”
“What?” her hands became fists. “How you must hate us! Whores. How you must hate having to come here and talk to me.”
“That’s not what – “
“That injection keeps me safe! I have an orphan brother to take care of!”
“Look,” he stood, and pulled out a small, glass, vial. Inside it were two, white pills. “Here. Have one with some water, and give the other to your brother. It is something that will help cancel it.”
“Cancel the nano-medical?”
“All affected agents are ordered to take these pills and cleanse themselves.”
“Something tells me I’ll never be clean enough for the Eye,” she handed back the vial.
He scowled but took it back.
“Think about your brother’s future, Vidya.”
“Think about yours. Now get out.”
Koirala III
Light years from Earth, a sachet tore and sweetner streamed out. Koirala looked at herself reflected in the oily commissary coffee. The mug was burning hot. She took her hand away, suddenly aware. Her eggs were already cold.
“I hope this seat isn’t reserved.”
She looked up. Admiral Sun Tzu, Supreme Commander of the Union Expeditionary Force, had a tray of masala dosas. People around looked while pretending not to. They sat at crowded tables or talked in tight knots at counters.
“At ease, stay in your seat,” he sat across from her.
“Hash browns, eggs, bacon? I always took you for the fruit and yoghurt type.”
“I’m raiding nomads in the desert after this, not doing yoga.”
“Where’s the rest of your unit?”
“Jahandar wanted to prep the vehicles early and eat on the go, the others are helping him. Me?” she held up a piece of crispy bacon, “This bacon is real. I’m making time for it. Call it work-life balance.”
“I looked over your transfer requests.”
“And?”
“Is is possible that you’re expecting too much from them?”
“I get to do that, Admiral. I’m their superior, and I make life and death decisions in the field. They’ve had six months. Some have risen to the task. Adil and Mustapha however, have become head cases. They don’t need reassignment, they need to be sent home to a military mental hospital.”
“We’re going to give them psych evaluations. If at all possible, we’ll just reassign them to desk duties or something far away from any front line action.”
“Why not just send them home? To hell with the evaluations, you know they’re broken dolls.”
“We want to avoid invaliding disturbed troops with disturbing stories.”
“What?”
“Comes down to media strategy.”
“Fuck media strategy! Those men are running ragged. There are lots of people here who are running ragged. Get them the fuck out of here. They’re sick.”
“Koirala, at my level, war is all about strategy. Running into hostile humans here has completely upset things. We needed a new media strategy. So we pitched these people as exploited, enslaved, brainwashed. An entire planet with Stockholm Syndrome. People felt sorry for them. That public sympathy is what’s fighting this war now. The occupation of Paradiso, is an act of charity.”
“You just called it an occupation.”
“Do you know anyone here who feels liberated?”
She looked back into her coffee.
“Charity stops when you can no longer afford it. If the public sees a stream of broken men and women coming back, they’ll decide enough is enough. I’ve run the numbers.”
“You owe these people.”
“I know. Which is why anyone who needs care will get it. We need to act with reserve. Anyone who we can keep at their duties or at least be reassigned, we won’t send back. There’s a lot we can do out here for them.”
She said nothing, and picked at her plate. There was no more bacon.
“I came here to talk to you about something else though.”
“What is it?”
“Burning Eagle,” he produced a file – a hard copy file. He pulled out a loose leaf page and handed it to her. She scanned it.
“A frequency – and is this an authentication code?” she jabbed with her finger.
“Memorize it.”
“What’s Burning Eagle?”
“Burning Eagle is a contingency plan in case I am destroyed or incapacitated. It’s a disaster plan.”
“This is above my pay grade. Why am I seeing it?”
“Because in a Burning Eagle scenario, the chain of command will be meaningless. Union forces will be in disarray, and unable to coordinate. The UEF will have taken heavy casualties, and we must assume will be no longer effective as a fighting force. You won’t need to be told we’re in a Burning Eagle. You’ll know it.”
“So I send out this authentication, and I get my orders?”
“You’ll be giving orders. Coordinates rather. There is a stealth weapons platforms in very high orbit. It’s completely off the grid –no access whatsoever to Union dataspace. It’s immune to digital attack, no one knows where it is, and there are no records of its construction.”
“I’m supposed to give it coordinates?”
“Your authentication, and then GPS coordinates. That’s it. It will fire a rail gun at that location. These will be hypervelocity rounds, there will be no stopping them.”
“I get an army killer?”
“You get a city killer.”
She paused. The hashbrowns had been chased to the very edge of her plate.
“I’m just a colonel. Why do I get this?”
“I know you’re just a colonel. I also know why you eat alone when your unit isn’t around.”
She sipped her cold coffee and looked around.
“You know what they call me, right?”
“The Butcher.”
“Doesn’t really bother me.”
“I know that too.”
“Shouldn’t it bother you? As you give control of a weapon of mass destruction, to the ‘Butcher’?”
“A long time ago, I helped pull a dying woman through an airlock. I told her I couldn’t bring back her parents, but I could get her into a war. She joined that war, and now people call her the Butcher.”
He leaned forward.
“If we have a Burning Eagle, we’re going to need a butcher.”
Sun Tzu II
The sentry walked along the perimeter, rifle slung, scarf flapping. Dust devils kicked up by the full moon reflected in his goggles. Selene had powered seas, but the Invader tankers had drained them. Now she kicked up sand and powdered bones off bleached seabeds. Sand dunes were drowning ghost towns all along the dead coasts.
Movement.
He turned sharply, staring into the haze, goggles zooming. Nothing but sand. He panned left, right. Still nothing. He started walking again.
Movement.
He was certain this time.
“Battlefield Control: sensor sweep on my coordinates.”
Nothing.
“Control? Come in Control.”
Radiation interference, he figured. Some dusts were dirty: they’d still be fallout-rich in a million years.
He panned left, right. Nothing –
Something blurry, disappearing into the sand.
He raised his rifle. It snapped into life, caseless rounds clocked into place.
“Who goes there?” he challenged in sound and radio.
Nothing.
He panned again, switching to infra-red. Still nothing.
“Battlefield Control?”
There was no answer. He was alone.
Toc.
He turned around, rifle darting left, right. At his feet was the stone that had just glanced off his helmet.
Toc. The blur emerged for an instant out of the buffeting sands.
Three a
rmor piercing rounds pumped into it.
He dropped and fired another six rounds, there were no flashes of return fire. He fired another six. Then popped a flare canister from his belt and flung it. It sailed to the target, blazing with white fire. He crouched, aimed, panned, advanced.
He reached where he’d fired, unchallenged. Deep gouges showed where the rounds hit, already filling in with sand. There was no body here though – not even a blood trail.
“Come in, come in, Battlefield Control come in.”
He looked around.
Nothing.
Toc.
It was between him and the perimeter, standing very still.
Sun Tzu sat up. The bed sheets were a tangle, sweat poured down his brow. He looked at the time – it was 4am.
He’d never had a dream before.
Diamond IV
Fetching water from a river, thought Heidelberg graduate student Frederic Girardot, was not his idea of cutting edge, AI research.
He made his way to the stream, taking in the wooded, green, mountains. For a century trees had been the dominant life forms on Paradiso. They ended the (successful) age of terraformers, who then dissolved, sank, and rusted away. It was into a whole planet like this thought Frederic, that the first tank-born settlers stepped. No wonder they had named the planet, Paradise.
The stream glittered in the sun, fast flowing and pure. He enjoyed the spring of the rich, grassy earth, and the cool air. The Edmund Mountains were certainly the most pleasant site they had prospected. Bernadotte had said it was the nicest place left on the whole planet, and she was right.
He reached the water, and dipped the bucket in. Minnows raced away and hid behind rocks. They darted back slowly, one by one, curious. He tried to catch one but they were too clever for that. Like Bernadotte, he thought. What was it with women? If you tried hard, you failed. If you didn’t try you succeeded, but you were preoccupied. You had to try without really trying.
No wonder these Asians love arranged marriage, he thought. I should settle down here. Print myself a little cabin and a lab. Uplift these minnows. Marry a nice local girl who will slit my throat.
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