Lines of Departure

by Marko Kloos

  “What the fuck was that?” Sergeant Fallon asks in an almost comically quizzical tone.

  “Kinetic strike,” I answer. “Someone sent down a little notice from orbit.”

  “Now hear this,” Colonel Campbell’s voice comes over the fleet emergency channel. “All fleet units, listen up. This is Indianapolis Actual.

  “I just fired two kinetic warheads at the ground between Camp Frostbite and New Longyearbyen. There are ninety-eight more of those in my magazine. All combat action against colonial units or civilian assets on New Longyearbyen will stop as of this moment, or I will launch the next pair right into the middle of Camp Frostbite. If you’re still shooting at your own people after that, I will shoot the rest of my kinetic warheads at every piece of fleet equipment down there that’s bigger than a belt buckle.”

  In the brief pause that follows, some of the HD troopers nearby look at each other and laugh in disbelief.

  “I also have all four of my nuclear launch tubes warmed up and dialed in on the Midway and her escorts. Rest assured that I will get my nukes off if you shoot missiles at me. I’ve also released both my stealth interceptors with nuclear ordnance, and those things are so sneaky that even I couldn’t find them.

  “The fleet will cease all offensive ops on the moon, and recall all its birds to the Midway. Take any offensive action against Indianapolis or any of the civvie installations on the surface, and I will launch every nuke in my tubes at Midway. Then you can test if your point-defense systems from two modernization cycles ago can handle two dozen half-megaton warheads from short range.”

  Sergeant Fallon shakes her head with a disbelieving grin and looks at me. “Did he just threaten to shoot nukes at one of our own ships?”

  “He did,” I confirm. “But he does have a history of that.”

  “I think I love that man. I want to meet him.”

  “What you’re doing on that moon down there is reckless idiocy that’s costing lives,” Colonel Campbell continues on the emergency channel. “Consider putting someone in charge on that flag bridge who isn’t a clueless part-time warrior. Now recall those birds and cease fire, or the next brace of kinetic warheads goes out into Camp Frostbite in sixty seconds. Indianapolis Actual out.”

  Nearby, some of the HD troopers clap and cheer.

  “You think he’ll do it?” Sergeant Fallon asks.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.”

  “Gee, too bad they shuttled their entire space ape regiment into Camp Frostbite just a little while ago,” she says wryly. “I’d hate to be back there right now. Those kinetic rounds hit pretty hard. I bet they make big holes.”

  All around us, dust and dirt from the massive impact plumes to the north of town have started to fall like dirty rain.

  “Yes, they do,” I say. “All the punch of a low-yield nuke, without that nasty radiation.”

  The terse reply from the fleet comes over the emergency channel well before the minute is up.

  “Hold your fire, Indianapolis. All fleet units, stand down. I repeat, all fleet units, stand down. Airborne units, disengage, disengage.”

  Within moments, all gunfire in the city ebbs. Across the intersection, the SI troopers withdraw into the warren of residential domes and narrow alleyways behind a rapidly thinning smoke screen. We track them with our rifle sights until they are gone from view. Someone turns off the fire-control system on the autocannon, and its electric servos stop humming. The sudden silence feels a bit surreal after the din of battle.

  Sergeant Fallon slaps my shoulder pauldron and leaps over the concrete barrier into the road.

  “The day’s looking up, Andrew. Let’s get some medics out to First Squad. Keep a watch, in case they change their minds.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “I want that general in the brig. Then I want him in front of a court-martial. And if they have the good sense to put him up against a wall, I want to stand behind the firing squad and wave good-bye.”

  Sergeant Fallon isn’t speaking with a raised voice, but I know her well enough to tell that she’s implacably angry.

  “That might be a bit difficult,” Colonel Campbell says over the vid link from Indianapolis. “He’s the ranking officer in this boondoggle of a task force. And if you come down on him, we also have to come down on the button pushers who executed his orders.”

  “You say that like it’s unreasonable,” Sergeant Fallon replies. “We have thirty-nine dead and seventy wounded down here. We’re down a Dragonfly, a Shrike, and four Wasps, and those hothead attack jocks put a thousand rounds of cannon shells into a civvie settlement. If the houses down here weren’t built like fucking bunkers, we could probably add fifty or a hundred civilians to that tally. The idiot who ordered that strike mission needs to walk the plank, Colonel.”

  “Look, Sarge, I’m not greatly troubled by the prospect, but it’s not like I can send my sergeant-at-arms over there to put cuffs on the general,” Colonel Campbell says. “What do you suggest?”

  “Tell them that there will be no food or water replenishment from the colony unless they relieve the general of command and put him in the brig pending a court-martial.”

  “I’m not sure they’ll respond well to that, Sarge.”

  “They’ll come around when their water recyclers run dry,” Sergeant Fallon says flatly.

  “Your show down there. I’ll send it on to the task force.”

  “Have they been poking around for you at all, Colonel?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah. Nothing aggressive, but the whole task force is running with their active sensors cranked all the way up. Even with this stealth boat, I have to keep my distance.”

  “How’s your supply situation?”

  “Well, this is an orbital combat ship, not a deep-space combatant. We have enough water and food for a few more weeks. But I want to work out a schedule for water replenishment and crew rotation as soon as practical. This thing isn’t really built for month-long deployments, and I don’t want my crew to go stir-crazy.”

  “Absolutely, Colonel,” Sergeant Fallon says. “And if you can pencil yourself in some dirtside time, I’d love to sit down for a drink with you. The locals make a fierce moonshine, and there’s plenty of ice around all over the place.”

  “That sounds pretty good, Sarge,” Colonel Campbell says. “I’ll take you up on that offer as soon as we have the situation here in orbit unfucked and I can put the safeties back on my nuclear launch tubes. Indy Actual out.”

  The briefing room on the bottom floor of the admin center has all the charm of a military mess hall, albeit with nicer furniture. A large holographic panel takes up the wall behind the head of the conference table. The colony is new, so all the communications gear is state of the art, more advanced than even the stuff in the CIC of the brand-new Indianapolis. Sergeant Fallon has been using the room for a while now to talk to the captains of Indianapolis and the Gary I. Gordon without fear of eavesdropping.

  “Not exactly an impressive navy,” I say. “One orbital combat ship and an ancient freighter. Those fleet units still outgun us fifty to one in ordnance.”

  “Yeah, but thank the gods for the nukes on that ship,” she says. “That’s the only thing keeping the fleet off our asses right now. That and the fact that the one captain defecting to our side has the stealthiest ship of the bunch.”

  There’s a knock on the door, and one of the colony’s administrators sticks his head into the briefing room.

  “Sergeant Fallon, there’s someone here to see you.”

  “Military or civilian?”

  “Uh, civilian, ma’am. She’s the head of our science mission.”

  “Well, by all means, send her in.”

  The woman who walks into the room is dark haired, slender, and almost as tall as I am. She is wearing an irritated expression on her face. She strides toward the conference table where Sergeant Fallon and I are sitting next to each other, and sits down in the chair directly across the table from us.

  “Do
n’t expect me to ask permission to sit down,” she says. “I’m not used to asking the military for the use of our own facilities, and I don’t think I’m going to start any time soon.”

  Sergeant Fallon raises an eyebrow and smiles the tiniest of smiles.

  “And you are?”

  “Dr. Stewart,” the woman says. “I’m the head of the scientific detachment here on the colony.”

  “I’m Briana Fallon. Do you have a conventional first name, too, or did your parents anticipate your future academic achievements when they picked your name?”

  Dr. Stewart replicates Sergeant Fallon’s tiny almost-smile.

  “My first name is Janet,” she says. “You have to forgive me for not addressing you by your proper rank. I’m not fluent when it comes to military rank insignia.”

  “I don’t think it matters much at this point,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Our new chain of command down here is a bit unorthodox. Bur for what it’s worth, I’m a master sergeant. And this fellow next to me is Staff Sergeant Grayson.”

  “Andrew,” I offer. Dr. Stewart nods at me.

  “How can we help you?” Sergeant Fallon asks.

  “Well.” Dr. Stewart folds her hands on the tabletop and smiles curtly. “You certainly get down to business promptly. I appreciate that in people.”

  She looks at the big holoscreen on the other side of the room, but it only shows the gray standby screen.

  “You could help me and yourselves a great deal by packing up all those extra troops you crammed into this settlement and taking them back home as soon as you can. Preferably before the start of the winter.”

  Sergeant Fallon snorts and shakes her head.

  “I would like to do nothing better right now. But just in case they left you science folks out of the loop, the fleet turned off the Alcubierre network and mined all the off-ramps. I’m afraid we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.”

  “Then I hope you brought enough sandwiches for a few years. I know the pencil pushers in the administration office aren’t all that great at math, so they probably haven’t pointed this out yet, but we don’t have nearly enough food on this moon to feed ourselves and a few thousand dinner guests.”

  “I thought you grow your own,” I say.

  “Mostly. We’re still dependent on shipments from home for quite a few things. With our normal population, we could probably run things lean for a long time, but not with the current headcount. Simply put, we have food capacity for x people, and right now we have x times two people on this moon.”

  “Can we increase capacity? Put up a bunch more greenhouses?” I ask.

  “Wish it were that easy,” Dr. Stewart says. “But we don’t have the local facilities to make those prefab greenhouse modules. And even if we did, the growing season down here is really short, and we’re almost at the end of it.”

  “The carrier has a lot of food and supplies in its stores, but we’re not exactly on lunch-line terms with the rest of the fleet right now.”

  “Once we get the fleet units to stop shooting and start talking, we can pool our supplies,” Sergeant Fallon says. “With the stuff from your food stores and the task force reserves, I think we can make it through to the next growing season. And that’s about all I can put on the table right now, because I can’t just tell a thousand of my troops to commit suicide for the sake of the headcount.”

  “No, of course not.” Dr. Stewart smiles curtly.

  “That’s assuming we make it all the way to the next season without the Lankies paying us a visit,” I say. “Because if they show up, the supply problem is the least of our worries.”

  “They’ve never shown any interest in this system,” Dr. Stewart says. “There isn’t much here, you know. Two little moons, one too hot and one too cold for proper colonization. If it wasn’t for the ice on this moon, we wouldn’t even have a presence here. Too desolate and too far from home.”

  “Let’s hope they share your views on the value of this property,” I say. “Because if they show up in orbit one morning, we’re all compost a few weeks later.”

  “You mean all those extra troops won’t make a difference?”

  “Not in the long run, no.”

  “Then why are they here?”

  “So they’re off Earth and well away from anywhere they could be starting trouble,” Sergeant Fallon answers for me. “We’re mostly malcontents and troublemakers with a history of insubordination. Your little moon is now a penal colony, more or less.”

  Dr. Stewart smiles her wry little smile again.

  “Lovely. Get killed by the Lankies, or starve to death eventually. I suppose there isn’t much of a point for me to update my résumé.”

  “Welcome to the end of the species,” I say. “At least we have ringside seats.”

  “Well.” Dr. Stewart folds her hands in her lap and looks at the standby pattern of the holoscreen again. Then she looks at us and shrugs. “I’m not too good at sitting on my ass and waiting for the shot clock to run out. Now, I’m no good at shooting a gun or flying a drop ship, but I have a scientific research facility full of smart people. Is there anything we can do to improve our position? Do you have a plan of some kind?”

  Sergeant Fallon smiles.

  “That term implies a level of organization that I’m not willing to claim just yet. Right now, we’re still in the ‘winging it’ stage.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The fleet has a hard and not-very-generous weight limit for personal possessions. Shipping a kilogram of stuff over dozens of light years is insanely expensive, so each Fleet Arm member is entitled to just twenty kilos of nonissue items. We can send physical mail back home, but only a total of five hundred grams every six months, and we can only receive two hundred grams in return from Earth. The contents of the personal compartment of my locker weigh just under seven kilos, the less to haul around between deployments. I mailed my medal cases home to Mom over the years for safekeeping, and because I knew she would be pleased to have them. She never sent anything back until last year when I got a letter from her—not a MilNet e-mail, which we exchange every month or so, but an actual physical letter, written on sugarcane paper in her narrow old-fashioned cursive. It was just four pages long, and it contained nothing she couldn’t have typed into the MilNet terminal at the civil administration building back home, but it was a physical object, something that she had held in her own hands.

  Right now, that letter is the only possession I have left. It’s tucked into the waterproof document pouch in my leg pocket, where it has been ever since I received it last year. All my other stuff is in a locker back at Camp Frostbite, unless the SI troops crammed into the place haven’t already dumped or looted all our gear. All I have left now are those four sheets of sugarcane paper, so thin you can almost see through them. As a welfare rat, I’ve never owned much, but I’ve never been entirely without possessions until now.

  I’m peeling unit patches off my battle dress smock when there’s a knock on the door of the storage room that serves as my temporary berth.

  “Come in.”

  The door opens on creaky hinges, and Sergeant Fallon sticks her head into the room. She looks at the small pile of cloth patches at my feet and raises an eyebrow.

  “Might as well dispense with the notion that we’re still members of an organized military,” I say. “I have half a mind to throw out all the rank sleeves as well.”

  “Have the tailor make you some new ones,” she says. “Nobody says you can’t be a goddamn two-star general in this outfit.”

  She steps into the room, crouches in front of me, and picks up one of the unit patches I discarded.

  “Weird, isn’t it? We’ve spent so much time and sweat on these things, and in the end they’re just cheap-ass fabric squares with some sticky thread backing. Not much to show for fifteen years and half a leg, is it?”

  “Don’t forget the bank account,” I say. “A million worthless Commonwealth bucks.”

  “Al
most three million worthless Commonwealth bucks,” she says. “Three reenlistment bonuses, a hundred and fifty monthly deposits, and jack squat to spend it all on. Just a bunch of numbers in a database somewhere, that’s all.”

  She knocks on her prosthetic lower leg.

  “There’s this little souvenir, of course, but I don’t think it counts. I wouldn’t have needed it if the military hadn’t sent me to the place where they blew off the original one.”

  “What about the shiny medal on the blue ribbon?”

  “The Medal of Honor?” She snorts a derisive little laugh. “That fucking thing. The moment they put that around my neck, I became a goddamn PR asset for the military. I had to practically blackmail them to stay in a combat billet. Although I will admit that it got me out of a court-martial or two. Doubt it’ll get me out of this mess, though.”

  “They can’t put two entire battalions up against the wall,” I say.

  “You haven’t been Earthside the last few years, Andrew. I honestly can’t say they wouldn’t. The more their grip on the rabble slips, the tighter they wrap the leash on their guard dogs.”

  Outside in the corridor, an announcement sounds over invisible speakers. It’s a pleasant female voice, so vaguely cheerful that it can only be a computer.

  “Attention, all personnel. This is a Level Two weather alert. Winds from the north at sixty to eighty kilometers per hour, light to moderate snow, temperature negative two-zero degrees Celsius. All exposed personnel, seek shelter or don appropriate protective clothing. I repeat, this is a Level Two weather alert. Monitor the MetSat channel for updated conditions. Announcement ends.”

  “Minus twenty?” Sergeant Fallon says. “That’s a bit chilly.”

  “And snow. Looks like winter’s starting.”

  “Well, grab your armor, and let’s go take a look. I haven’t seen any clean white snow since that combat drop into Trondheim back in ’99. ’Course, that snow didn’t stay white long.”