by Joshua Guess
What I wasn’t at all sure about was what would happen if the reality of humanity’s situation became general knowledge. The UEE’s alliance with the Friendly and their associates was thin and predicated on eventually taking back the Earth. Similarly, I had no clue how the people of Earth would react to finding out that our only allies in space were also at least tangentially responsible for the invasion.
What I really, really didn’t want to think about was the reaction those allied races would have in the face of an angry, vengeful Earth.
“I’m a recon pilot,” I said, unable to keep a pleading, pathetic note from my voice. “I fly a glorified tube into empty systems. This is so far outside my job description it’s barely in the same universe.”
Shuul laughed again—I was assuming—and patted me on the shoulder. “I understand, my friend. Remember, I am myself a mid-level engineer of no great importance. Yet here I am, ready to assist your efforts to save your world. Sometimes even small creatures find themselves in the right place and time to make great changes.”
When it came down to brass tacks, knowing the truth didn’t make a difference. Not in the short term. Conditions being what they were, we had no choice but to move forward with the attack. We had to stop the Gaethe surge from happening, which meant proceeding as if nothing had changed.
What would matter was the long view. What Shuul told me changed my perspective. The deeply human part of me was suspicious that he was lying, but I didn’t get that impression from him. Knowing meant looking at everything that came after—assuming we succeeded and I survived—through a different lens altogether.
If human beings are good at one thing, it’s holding a grudge. I would have bet any amount of money that when the truth came to light as the truth always seems to do, hell would follow with it.
Twenty-Three
“Why is it taking so long?” I asked Rinna as we waited on our dinner to arrive.
She gave me a funny look. “Are you talking about the food, or the assault?”
“The assault. Obviously. We just ordered.”
Since coming back from Shelby, the members of the fire team had taken me fully under their wing. Apparently I’d earned a decent stock of credibility by leading the Gaethe away from their hiding spot, and the team was repaying me by trying to make me a “real boy”, as Reid put it. As a result I had no shortage of offers for lunch and dinner and was invited out when any member of the group hit a bar, though after a particularly competitive night of playing pool I was no longer allowed to pick up a cue. Not my fault Jax made every shot perfect.
“Are you asking why coordinating a simultaneous, worldwide attack on an entrenched enemy who heavily outguns us is taking a while?” Rinna asked sweetly. “I mean, I can draw you a picture, but…”
“I know,” I said, irritated. “It just seems like there’s no sense of urgency. We know damn well the Gaethe are going to sweep the continents clean fairly soon. Seems like there’s good reason to get a move on.”
Rinna smiled over the glass of whiskey in her hand. “Worst case scenario, everyone gets underground. It would be a bitch to rebuild, but the loss of life would be minimal.”
I blinked. “Underground? How many shelters are there?”
Rinna sipped her whiskey, then sat it down. “Every conclave—major groups of survivors—has an Alpha base. There are two in what used to be the United States, one in Canada, you get the idea. Every Alpha has three Bravo bases connected to it by the tunnel system. Every Bravo has three Charlie bases, and so on. We make the Sand dig new ones as needed, so it’s not an actual geometric progression, but every town and homestead is within a few miles of an underground base. We designed it that way for this sort of large-scale attack.”
I tried to wrap my mind around the scale of it and failed. There were probably several thousand of them, varying in size, just on this continent. Ceres was a labyrinth of tunnels and living spaces, and the mining and fabricating operations the UEE ran in the asteroid belt and Oort cloud of our adopted solar system were huge.
But nothing like this. I tried to remember that the people here were far ahead of the UEE when it came to utilizing nanotechnology for large-scale projects, but it wasn’t easy. It was a little like looking at the pyramids; no matter how much history you learned about the suffering and effort put into them, their immensity overwhelmed logical thought.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s kind of incredible.”
Rinna finished her whiskey. “A lot of planning and work is what it was. The whole time Ceres was being refitted and her orbit moved, the UN was working on other long-term survival options. Not to be a dick or anything, but your colony ship was never intended to be the human race’s only fail-safe. If the goddamn planet hadn’t been invaded, there would be a huge colony on Mars, maybe even a floating city or ten on Venus.”
She caught our server’s attention, hiking her glass up and giving it a shake.
“I just want to get home,” I said. “That’s selfish as hell, I know, but there it is.”
Rinna shrugged. “You can’t help how you feel, man. I’d be homesick too. I think it’s shitty your bosses told you you can’t leave until it’s over with. Forcing you to help us like that isn’t something we do here.” She frowned. “I’m not happy with Vera and her bosses for letting them bully you into it, either.”
“I want to help,” I said, which was true. And while I agreed with Rinna that my orders sucked, I wasn’t surprised. Jax was a magnitude more powerful than any computer on the planet, and the corresponding advantage he gave me was too large to be ignored. There was theoretically no limit to the amount of Sand Jax could command at once, assuming he created automated programs to handle large sections of it.
I had no illusions about being a one-man army. Jax was the one with the power in this situation; I was just the vehicle he used to get around.
No, my orders aside, I was eager to get home so I could find out what my superiors knew about the Friendly and their associates. If it turned out the UEE was knowingly working with the group that had forced the invasion to happen, that would change things. If not, I intended to make sure everyone at home learned the truth. It wasn’t something I could bring up over the tight beam.
“Ah, there it is,” Rinna said in a delighted voice. Our server had reappeared with a large tray loaded with fresh drinks and our food. It smelled wonderful.
“Tacos,” I said, looking down at my plate. “This is new for me.”
Rinna bit off half of one of hers in a single go. “You’re gonna love it,” she said around it.
She was absolutely right. Those things are amazing.
We chatted between bites and I sampled several drinks, all suggested by Rinna. At some point a trio of musicians took to the small stage in the corner of the room and played a surprising variety of songs. Some were traditional mariachi, others ancient country music by Johnny Cash, with a smattering of Bluegrass thrown in. I discovered that I hated tequila, found good bourbon agreeable, and fell in love with rum.
It was a good night, made better by Rinna’s increasingly drunken storytelling. The details might have been fuzzy considering the herculean volume of booze I put away, but I had my own integrated recording device.
It’s a memory I can replay any time I want, and before then I had never considered what I was to be a blessing.
***
I woke up to someone pounding on the door. Blessed as I was with an enhanced physiology, I felt no ill effects from the bender. This was not ideal since my ascent into wakefulness was crisp and concise, requiring no time to pull myself together or gradually understand my condition.
That slower process might have help me develop an idea where I was, and why I was wearing someone else’s pants, no shirt, and a comically oversize hat.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened, flooding the room with light. A kid barely old enough to shave stood in the doorway wearing a Defense Force uniform, and I knew where I was. Specif
ically, I was on the floor slumped against a wall in some part of the barracks. The bunks filled with the sprawled, unconscious forms of the fire team made that conclusion for me.
“What’s up?” I asked the young man. “Problem? Am I not supposed to be here?”
“No, sir,” the kid said. “I mean, you’re welcome to be in the barracks, sir. There is a problem, but it’s not that.”
I got to my feet and snatched at the waist of my borrowed pants, which were big enough to fit another me into. I began to remember bits and pieces, including why Williams had to lend me clothes.
“I tried to swim in a…fountain?” I mumbled to myself.
“Yes, sir,” the kid said. I guess he thought I was asking him. “We had reports coming in all night. You and your friends had quite an adventure, from the sound of it.”
I nodded, intending to put a little seriousness into the gesture, but my giant hat fell off and ruined it. “So, uh, what’s the problem? Do we need to wake everyone up…sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Jenkins, sir. Private Jenkins. And no, I was told to bring you to research ops as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Think you could find me a fresh uniform? I have no idea where my clothes are.”
“Of course, sir,” Jenkins said. “My understanding is that you took off your clothes after your dip in the fountain.”
I stared at him flatly. “So I came back here naked, then?”
Jenkins had the grace not to crack a smile. “That’s what I hear.”
“Awesome,” I said. “Thanks, Jenkins. I’ll be ready as soon as you get me some clothes.”
The young man did smile, then. “Sir, you may want to take a shower. You have some marks on your face that may wash off.” He saluted, which was super weird for me, and turned on his heel to find me some new threads.
I stepped into the bathroom kiosk, the light coming on automatically. The marks turned out to be the words ‘love machine’ written in bold black marker across my forehead. The writing was sloppy and wandered halfway down one cheek, because whoever did it to me apparently hadn’t counted on it taking more space than my forehead had.
I showered quickly and made myself presentable, but I chose not to review the recording of the previous night just yet. I didn’t want to have it fresh in my mind when I met with Paulson.
I thanked Jenkins when he handed me my new clothes through the bathroom door, making a mental note to ask Rinna to give him an easy job. The kid was nice, and had it been one of the fire team who had given me the message, I have no doubt they’d have sent me along without mentioning the writing on my face.
Dicks.
I walked into Paulson’s office fifteen minutes later. I spent a lot of time there when he needed some piece of information from Jax, so the staff was familiar with me. I waved to a few people I knew, though the mood was subdued. Everyone looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.
“I have a feeling you’re about to ruin my day,” I said after Paulson closed the door. “What’s with everyone? Did I do something unforgivable here last night?”
Paulson sat on the edge of his desk, sending dangerous tremors through the piles of half-finished electronics stacked on it. “Huh? What happened last night?”
I waved it away. “Forget it. You wanted to see me?”
Paulson fidgeted. “Yeah. I had a meeting with Command this morning. There were some disturbing readings overnight from the border between Gaethe territory in the east and our own. It’s looking like their timetable is advancing. We’re going to move sooner than we’d like. Since your NIC can manage so many operations at once, you’re going to be tasked with the primary assault on the warseed in Jacksonville.”
“Okay,” I said, taken off guard but not blown away. “Is there more bad news?”
Paulson’s face fell. “I’m afraid so. Command talked to your people back on Ceres, trying to figure out some advantage. They sent along a design we can definitely use, but it requires a significant amount of Kyotogen to work.”
I’d picked up a lot of information in my time living in Bravo 2. Kyotogen, the exotic matter used to create warp fields—named after the city where it had first been produced—was not used or manufactured anywhere on the continent. Oh, it could be, but the initial batch took vast amounts of energy to synthesize. Once it was made it could be used to make more, like a seed. This entire line of reasoning was why we were planning to attack the warseed in the first place. By taking out the Kyotogen there, we could prevent it from being used to make more, crippling the Gaethe.
The problem was that the stuff needed highly advanced shielding to remain undetected. My ship had that kind of shielding. It also held a few kilos of Kyotogen.
“You’re grounding me,” I said. “Kitur told you to pull the core from the Valkyrie.”
Paulson nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry, Mars. You’re going to be stuck here until it’s safe enough to allow the UEE to send a ship to get you.”
Which was the same thing as saying I was here until the Gaethe were beaten once and for all.
Twenty-Four
When Paulson told me our timetable had moved up, he was absolutely not fucking around. The next two days were a flurry of briefings, strategy meetings, and crash courses. There was a lot of detailed back and forth from all sides about the best way to utilize me in the fight, but it was Rinna who finally broke this cycle of attempted micromanaging near the end of the second day.
“Shut it!” she said to the people gathered around the table, which included the leadership of every division of the Bravo 2 government. She slapped a hand down on the wood, filling the room with an echoing crack. Stony faces looked back at her, making me glad the attention wasn’t directed at me.
“All of you have something to say about how Mars should go about his job,” she said, raking the room with her gaze. “I understand you want to make him effective, but every one of you has a different concept of what that means. Let me make it simple for you.
“Mars Cori is a pilot. My team has been training him for combat, but there just hasn’t been enough time to give him the experience he needs. What you all have to understand from this moment on is what his advantages actually are rather than what you want them to be. His NIC can do amazing things with Sand. The volume of it he’ll bring to bear against the warseed is enormous. What he can’t do is fight off a thousand gunships, or beat ten thousand ground troops.”
A few people glanced at me as if to determine whether Rinna’s words bothered me. I tried to look serious and interested, but she and I had discussed this already. I spoke up right on cue.
“She’s right,” I said. “The only reason I’m being tasked with the warseed is because I can hit them with a bigger hammer than any fifty armored soldiers can swing. I’m good at improvising, and the weapon Doctor Paulson has been fabricating with guidance from my people on Ceres will do the actual work for me. All I have to do is get it in place.”
Yeah, I was downplaying just how insanely dangerous the job was going to be. I knew that. They knew that. But it was the dance you did when it came to marking the line between the people who plan the war and the people who fight the war. I was silently grateful for the many ideas and tactics hurled across the room, because some of them seemed useful. Any resource I could draw on would be welcome, especially if it saved my life.
The truth was that no amount of careful groundwork would make the variables suddenly static. Once I reached the fight itself, things would become unpredictable. I was mentally prepared to use brute force and creative thinking to stay alive.
Rinna leaned forward, fists on the table. “Mister Cori won’t be alone. I’ll lead the support team. As recent events have shown us, integrating a small team with Jax gives all of us a powerful advantage. If anyone on this planet can breach the warseed, it’s us.” She reached for the computer interface built into the table and swiped a file out to the group. “I’ve drawn up my own plan. Take a look and tell me what you t
hink, so long as when you’re done you agree with me.”
A round of restrained laughter followed, but there wasn’t a trace of humor on Rinna’s face.
She had explained to me that this kind of thing happened before every big operation. Unlike the old military systems Earth had seen in times past, the Defense Forces didn’t have the same sharp division between civilian and soldier. Everyone was under threat from the Gaethe, which blurred the lines and gave proven soldiers leeway to push back against pressure from above. I tried to imagine doing that back home, and failed. The closest I could come was my interview for the Home Run.
Eventually we reached a compromise: Rinna’s plan of attack was accepted, but a master document was uploaded to Jax to be used as a sort of encyclopedia of options. Rinna seemed annoyed by this, and I understood why. It was the weak spot in her armor; she always thought her way was the best. Experience reinforced that, making it hard for her to give much weight to other perspectives.
I mean, come on. She was brilliant, deadly, and had survived against the Gaethe in countless fights. She had every right to feel the way she did. It was an utterly reasonable reaction.
But I began to truly understand why we Blues were saddled with our ever-present NICs. Without Jax there to point out my errors, to remind me of my flaws and faults, I might have killed myself through overconfidence a dozen times.
I wasn’t worried about an excess of confidence doing us in, though. Hard to muster up that kind of ego knowing what we were about to face. I found myself glad Rinna had let the bickering between the members of the leadership build up to critical mass in order to make her—our—idea a more palatable compromise. Not because we were necessarily right. It just felt good to have a direction. Dangerous as it was, we at least had a plan to follow.
