Orphan Brigade

by Henry V. O'Neil

  “What did they find?”

  The older man straightened up. “Nothing. Not a single sighting of anything like what you encountered. And it’s been weeks. To be honest, no one knows what to make of that.”

  “Weeks? I was locked up for weeks, and you knew about it?”

  Leeger’s lips parted in a disbelieving smile. “Son, you’ve been scanned in every way we know, several times, and they had one last look at your insides while you were enjoying the ambience of that Sim Ball court. It was the only way they were ever going to let your father come into contact with you, so I consider it a small price to pay.”

  “He’s here?”

  “His shuttle’s docking even as we speak. Command wouldn’t dare let the Chairman of the Emergency Senate on the same station with you until they were certain you were clean.” Leeger stood. “So if you’re done crying, let’s get you into a uniform, Lieutenant. And then go see your dad.”

  The dress uniform’s high collar seemed to bite into his throat as Mortas followed Leeger down the telescoping passage that joined the station to his father’s shuttle. He remembered sealing the crisp new suit in a protective case and hanging it in a closet at the Mortas home not long before, in preparation for shipping out. As an infantry lieutenant headed for a platoon in the war zone he would have had little need for such finery, and his thoughts briefly went to the filthy, torn fatigues he’d been wearing when he’d finally reached Glory Main.

  His left hand swung unnaturally, as if he were holding a small weight, and Mortas kept looking down at his university ring. That too had been placed in safekeeping before he shipped out, and he hadn’t expected to see it again for several years. If ever.

  The ship’s hatch was open when they reached the end of the umbilical, and even though he’d traveled on his father’s shuttle many times, he was still struck by its opulence. Perhaps it was the recent experience of being transported by standard military carriers, or maybe that he’d been locked up for several weeks, but the entire setup seemed grossly luxuriant.

  Imitation wood decorated the edges of the craft’s furnishings, and everything else appeared to be colored in rich cream. The crew contained no Human Defense Force personnel, instead consisting of carefully screened and highly trained members of Olech Mortas’s considerable retinue. Even so, they all sported uniforms that were quasi-­military, and Mortas found that it bothered him. Remembering now that he’d never felt fully at ease on this ship or with any of the more recent additions to his father’s coterie, suspicious that the too-­ready smiles were masks that these ­people probably practiced in mirrors.

  And then he was at the hatch leading to his father’s office, the traveling control room at the very top of humanity’s governmental apparatus. Despite the disorganization and inefficiency he’d encountered in the war zone, Mortas knew from personal witness that the multidecade conflict was directed by the man who sat beyond this hatch. Leeger ushered him in and shut the entrance behind him, and Mortas felt a twinge of the same apprehension he’d experienced whenever his interrogations had recommenced.

  A curtain hung before him now, intended to block prying eyes whenever the hatch was open, and Mortas took a deep breath before stepping through the drapes. It was exactly as he remembered it, a small room decorated with the same imitation wood, but festooned with electronic screens that currently displayed a variety of paintings depicting pastoral scenes of a bygone age. Many visitors to that office left without realizing that the screens had been arranged so that the Chairman of the Emergency Senate could view selected data or manage a crisis, all just by standing in the room’s center.

  The chairman sat facing the hatch with his back to the far bulkhead, behind a communications console that had always reminded Mortas of an old-­style organ he’d once seen in a church. He’d found it funny, imagining his father’s fingers dancing over the buttons and keyboards, directing the far-­flung machinations of his latest schemes while a sonorous dirge blasted from pipes made of lead, copper, and tin.

  A maestro more concerned with the activities of total strangers in distant solar systems than the two motherless children in his own home.

  The man behind the desk looked up from one of its screens and gave Mortas the same smile he’d seen in the passageways leading there. Olech came to his feet, wearing a tunic and pressed trousers of a rich fabric colored something between dark green and dark gray. It was cut in a military style, but that was fitting in the Chairman’s case because a single blood red bar was pinned to his chest, a decoration Mortas had known all his life.

  Earned by an Olech Mortas he had never known, a volunteer in the early years of the long war, aged only fifteen because the fight had been going so badly. The award represented ser­vice in a special army formed by a temporary waiver that had dropped the volunteer age to twelve. They were still revered decades later, because most of them had perished in the desperate but ultimately successful bid to reverse the seemingly endless string of Sim victories. Olech Mortas had been severely wounded after several weeks of combat that he routinely referred to—­humbly, of course—­as total chaos that had consumed the lives of better men—­better children—­than he. They were collectively known as the Unwavering, and in a private moment Olech had once admitted to his son that their minimal training and panicked commanders had been the main reasons why so few of them had returned.

  Olech was in his early fifties, but looked ten years younger. Matching Mortas’s six-­foot height and almost as lean as his twenty-­two-­year-­old son, the Chairman still sported a full head of hair that was gracefully changing from blond to silver. His daughter Ayliss had inherited the golden hair and the blue eyes, while her younger brother Jander had come into the world with their mother’s dark hair and eyes of the same color.

  His father maintained the smile as he approached, and when Olech extended his hand Mortas took it. The Chairman’s eyes bore straight into him, and when he spoke it was with mirth.

  “Didn’t expect to be seeing you so soon, Jan.”

  “—­and they kept me in a cell, interrogated me, told me nothing, and finally brought me here.” Mortas finished the long tale in the same even tone that his father always demanded. “Apparently someone thought I was possessed by a demon or something, so they put me through a fake shipboard fire where I thought I was going to die, just to see what would pop out of me.”

  “Station-­board.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Station-­board. You weren’t on a ship, so it couldn’t be a fake shipboard fire. And it was the only way I was ever going to get you back.”

  “Back?”

  The chairman misunderstood the barb, and began to nod. He’d resumed his place behind the desk, and Mortas was seated before him in a straight-­backed chair with no arms.

  “Yes. Back. I have to admit something here, Jan. I knew you’d go out there and give it your best, but I had no idea you’d developed such talents at bringing ­people together. I’ve read all the reports, and the way you got the other three maroons to work with you was impressive.” He paused, and Mortas prepared himself for a comment about his failure to spot the alien. “Especially Gorman.”

  Surprised by the words and unsure of where his father was going, Mortas decided to head him off. “Gorman was actually the easiest one to work with. He was a pacifist, Holy Whisper, and as long as we didn’t violate his principles, he pretty much went along with whatever we were doing. He also figured out what planet we were on without being asked, and with no instruments.”

  “That’s different from my experience. The representatives of the Holy Whisper that I’ve met seldom go along with anything. For some reason they don’t seem to trust me much.” He flashed the winning smile, and Mortas returned it in reflex. “But they sure like you.”

  “What?”

  “I showed them the footage of when you had just reached Glory Main, as you emerged from t
hat hijacked Wren. You looked like you’d been fed through a meat grinder, but when you asked that Banshee commander if there was a special rite for Gorman’s remains, it really struck a chord with his ­people.”

  For an instant, Mortas was somewhere else. Listening to Ayliss, who had taught him early on to distrust their father completely. She’d been arguing against his decision to go to the war zone, and had warned him that whatever happened—­whether he lived or died—­Olech would use it to his advantage.

  “I wasn’t performing for an audience, Father. Gorman saved my life more than once. His religion was everything to him—­”

  “Exactly.” The words came out almost as a hiss, and Mortas saw the fire in the blue eyes that usually meant his father was about to propose something. “That’s what the Holy Whisper elders saw in that footage. I granted them access to a redacted copy of your report, and when they read how you’d accommodated Gorman’s beliefs, I sensed this could be a turning point.

  “I can’t tell you how proud I am of what you did there, Jan. And that’s why you’re going to be my new ambassador to Pacifica.”

  Even coming so close on the heels of his recent experiences, this was a bombshell. Mortas looked at the office carpet in order to digest what his father had just proposed, noticing the seal of the Emergency Senate woven into the gold fabric. The university ring on his finger regained its weight, and he recognized the genuine urge to accept the appointment. Raised a child of privilege, he’d always been afforded a certain deference from ­people who feared his father or hoped to get something from him. The assumption that he would regain that status after serving in the war was not new to him.

  Fresh memories of starvation, blisters, and far too many close brushes with death added weight to the argument to simply say yes. He’d come to like Gorman very much, and had cried unabashedly when the pacifist had died, so there would be nothing fraudulent about representing his father to Gorman’s ­people. Mortas had gone to the war zone with every intention of leading an infantry platoon in combat, and it was hardly his fault that he’d been captured by the enemy while in transit.

  Those thoughts brought up a different memory, Mortas’s earlier expectations of what it would be like when he returned from the war. Hopefully not badly wounded, but not having emerged unscathed. Tempered by the experience, but also having gained true knowledge of who he was at his very core.

  Mortas found his eyes on the red ribbon that adorned his father’s chest, and not by accident. A question came to mind.

  “You showed these Holy Whisper elders footage of me coming out of the Wren? With the alien right behind me?”

  “Of course not. I applied a little judicious editing, in keeping with security protocol. The Force in the war zone has been informed of the new threat, but for the time being, news of the alien and its capabilities has been restricted to those units and the highest levels of Command.”

  “The word’s going to get back, no matter what you do.”

  “I’ve got my ­people circulating a rumor to that effect already, but one so absurd that nobody’s going to know what to make of the real story when it eventually comes out. You’ll learn how to take proactive steps like that, once you’ve been a diplomat for a while.”

  “And what are ­people going to say when they find out that the son of the Chairman of the Emergency Senate brought this alien to a Corps headquarters in the war zone?”

  “The same thing that the rest of the Force thinks: you identified the alien when you reached safety, and it was destroyed because of you.”

  Mortas shook his head, allowing a wry smile onto his lips. As usual in matters involving their father, Ayliss had been spot-­on. No matter what happened to Mortas in the war, Olech would make a hero out of him.

  “I imagine you think you don’t like that story, Jan, but it beats the hell out of the truth. Maybe you don’t know this, but the Twelfth Corps commander moved Glory Main from that rock within days of having it compromised. You have any idea how long it took to create that base, and how much it cost?”

  “Yeah, Cranther said that the higher-­ups go to crazy lengths to protect themselves in the zone.” Remembering what happened when he and the alien had approached the dead space rock where Glory Main was concealed. “Did you know they had a secret weapon there, one that took control of our Wren and was going to crash it into the ground just so they could stay hidden?”

  “Of course. They even played me the transmission when you were about to crash, the one where you told them you’re my son and that I’d do terrible things to them if they killed you.”

  A knowing smirk tickled the corners of Olech’s mouth, and Mortas pretended not to notice. “They would have done it if I hadn’t used your name. I hadn’t mentioned it before. To anyone.”

  “Here’s my point: the rest of the Force thinks you’re a hero, but the Twelfth Corps leadership is mad as hell. They don’t want you back . . . although technically you never reported to them in the first place.”

  “There are other units out there. Plenty of platoons that need a lieutenant.”

  “Too many, I’m thinking.” The smirk was gone, and Mortas thought that he’d actually detected a look of fatherly concern. He couldn’t be certain, however, having never seen it before. He was about to speak when Olech’s face hardened.

  “If you insist on going back out there, I’m not going to stand in your way. You should know that one of the most difficult parts of my job is keeping the coalition together, and that the Holy Whisper is never far away from banning their young ­people from ser­vice.”

  The words sounded genuine enough, but Mortas had grown up with the other man’s excuses for his absences and couldn’t help wondering if this wasn’t more of the same. He was of use to his father at the moment, and so had temporarily gained his attention.

  “Gorman said they didn’t have a problem with serving as long as they didn’t participate in acts of violence. Seems like there’d be enough jobs they could hold without having grounds to quit the war.”

  “There are, but the elders are always looking for an excuse to sit out the whole conflict. Funny thing about the Whisper; in a lot of ways they’re just like any other coalition member. Sometimes they need to have their hands held, or to get some kind of special recognition. You know that Hab planet where you were marooned? We’re going to name it after Gorman. Calling it Roanum. That was his first name, right? Roan?”

  “Yes.”

  “That would be a nice message for the new ambassador to carry to Gorman’s ­people. Especially coming from the man who got him out of there.”

  Mortas’s eyes blinked quickly, as if trying to remove the mental image of Gorman’s bloody flight suit, punctured by shrapnel from the explosion that Mortas had set off. The picture disappeared, only to be replaced by the same man lying on the deck of the Wren after it had broken free of the hated planet’s orbit. Mortas holding Gorman’s hand, the alien holding the other one, both of them reciting the Holy Whisper prayer that the dying man had taught them much earlier.

  Imagining himself emerging from a different shuttle, an ambassador’s conveyance, to announce that the Chairman of the Emergency Senate had named the horrible planet of pain and loss after one of the men who had been killed there, in order to keep the dead man’s ­people in the war. The obscenity of it almost made him gag.

  “I’m sure your ambassador will do a good job delivering that message. Whoever he or she is.”

  Olech stared at him for a long moment, perhaps giving him the chance to reverse the decision, perhaps already calculating his next move. The blue eyes shifted away finally, and his father punched two or three buttons on the console with a look of weariness.

  “All right. Looks like Command will have to find you a new assignment.” Olech rose, but when Mortas started to do the same his father waved him back down. Coming around the desk, he took hold of a chair ide
ntical to Mortas’s and brought it close.

  “Jan, I’ve watched the video of you and the alien in the decontamination tubes. I’ve studied your reactions when the alien was identified, when it transposed into all those flying specks, all the way through to when it was incinerated.

  “I know you’ve kept this from the interrogators, but I’m your father, and I know something more happened there. I think you’d agree that it is vitally important for me to understand the nature of this new opponent. Completely.”

  The face was grave until Olech replaced it with the winning smile. “Now. Tell me everything about the alien that impersonated Captain Trent. Especially what happened to you in that tube.”

  “Turned me down flat, Hugh.” Olech turned his son’s university ring over and over in his hands. “Why are my kids so fucking stubborn?”

  Seated in front of the desk, Leeger answered him with raised eyebrows.

  “All right, I suppose I shouldn’t be all that surprised.” With the slightest of sighs he put the ring down. “So. This is where you get to remind me that I shouldn’t have sent him to the Glory Corps in the first place.”

  “It wasn’t such a bad decision. They don’t call them the Senate’s Own for nothing.”

  “That’s not why I sent him there—­or tried to, anyway. Sure they’re political as all get out, and they can’t fight worth a damn, but at least they know it. One of the quietest sectors of the war . . . and look what was waiting.”

  “You had no way of knowing that was going to happen.”

  “I suppose it was a bizarre kind of blessing, that Jan was involved. I doubt I would have gotten the straight story from Command, no matter how much of a threat that thing was. Turns out it was telepathic, in addition to its other tricks. It spoke right into Jan’s head even though it was sealed in a decon tube.”

  “You probably don’t want that becoming common knowledge.”