Assimilated

by Nick Webb

  Pit. An empty hole in the ground. Pitt. An empty head in the black of space. The guy was tiny—barely five foot two—and dressed in a suit that seemed at once obnoxiously expensive and embarrassingly cheap. A pale little weasel, nearly sixty, someone far too old to be leading this delicate diplomatic mission, despite his freshly dyed yet receding black hair, a pathetic protest against age’s encroachment.

  “They say,” said Mattis, drawing in another lungful of ash and then blowing the smoke out into the shuttle’s atmosphere, “that smoking’s bad for me. They ain’t cured the kind of cancer these things cause. They say they can’t. That there’s just something filthy in them that burrows into the cell walls of the lungs and nestles in there real good, like some kind of varmint digging its nest, and once it does, it can’t be dug out for nothing.”

  Pitt laughed—a noise high pitched and annoying—and slid over to him. “Right, right. So how about you put that thing out, hey, Grandpa?”

  Grandpa? Funny words coming from someone his own age. Mattis turned with slow, careful deliberation toward the man, the cigar tip flaring an angry red.

  Pitt held up his hands. “Easy now, big fella. I’m just sayin’.”

  Mattis stared him down, casually puffing on the cigar. The shuttle adjusted its course. Blue light crept up Pitt’s body as the craft tilted to one side. Mattis imagined the blue line was the shadow of some great hand crushing this tiny bug of a man.

  “Look,” said Pitt, all pretense of faux-humor fading away, his craggy face becoming an angry sneer. He jabbed his finger at Mattis’s chest. “You’re only here because the military big-shits want you here. I didn’t. They did. Some kind of show of trust or…whatever. Okay? Listen: you’re here to show these damn reds that we’re here in peace, and that even a bitter old dog like you can be brought to heel. That there won’t be any more plausibly denied, state-sponsored insurrections on their worlds. You’re here to say nothing, do nothing, and let me do my fucking job. I do the talking. You just stand there and don’t screw this up for me. Okay, Mattis? You get that? Huh?”

  Mattis glared down at him, a silent tower, smoke trailing from his cigar.

  “Say something.”

  Oh, you probably don’t want me to do that. Mattis bit back ten thousand bitter words and focused entirely on the practical. “It’s Admiral Mattis.”

  “Whatever.” Pitt snatched the cigar and crushed it underneath his slightly too cheap shoe. “And no more goddamn smoking, or I’ll ship you back to the States to live out your life giving speeches to kindergarteners and complaining about the neighbors, you senile old fuck. Capiche?”

  Senile. What a hypocrite. “Right,” said Mattis, his eyes two narrow slits. “No more smoking.”

  Pitt pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why are you giving me such trouble, Mattis? After I got you that promotion and all. I did you a favor.”

  Yes. The promotion. Promoted away from the command of the USS Midway, promoted to a desk, promoted away from the best job he’d ever had. Because, as Pitt had put it, it was ‘better politically.’ Whatever that was supposed to mean.

  Pitt had pissed on him and was now standing there telling him it was rain.

  A faint hiss echoed through the shuttle, and the pilot’s voice echoed from speakers placed throughout the forward section. “Please be advised we’ve docked with Friendship Station. All passengers to disembark through the forward docking ring.”

  “Just remember,” said Pitt, waggling a finger at him, “this is my operation. I’m in charge. Got it?”

  “Of course.”

  Pitt took a deep breath, and seemingly put his mask back on. “C’mon,” he said, flashing the biggest, cheesiest, fakest smile Mattis had ever seen. “Let’s go meet the Chinese delegation.”

  He tried to move, genuinely, but for some reason, his feet remained rooted to the ground. As though some invisible force was keeping him anchored there, in the shuttle.

  “You okay?” asked Pitt, the barest hint of real compassion in his voice.

  Cor Caroli System. The system that had seen the bloodiest battle of the entire war. The battle where Phillip had died. No, not died. Been killed. Killed by the damn Chinese…

  The past was in the past. “After you,” said Mattis, gesturing with his hand.

  Pitt gave him a weird look, but then together, with Mattis taking up the rear, the two men headed out of the shuttle and crossed the threshold into the docking umbilical, a long tunnel dotted with windows. As they walked, a light shining through one of the windows caught his attention and held it. Like the face of an old friend, docked next to the tiny shuttlecraft, he saw…her.

  The Midway, her mighty guns silent, her superstructure draped in scaffolding and dotted with yellow-suited workmen, welding and fixing. Must have been here for her refit. She still had fighters aboard, so she was probably responsible for the station’s CAP.

  They had brought him barely a hundred meters away from his ship. Probably just to mess with him.

  “Come on,” hissed Pitt, breaking the trance. “Don’t dawdle. We can’t keep the Chinese waiting.”

  Mattis ground his teeth together, forcing his lips to make something he hoped resembled a smile. “I suppose not,” he said, barely able to contain his growing frustration. “We wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings, would we?”

  “Right,” said Pitt.

  With gritted teeth, Mattis walked down the long corridor toward the waiting delegation.

  Lt. Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s Warbird

  Midway Fighter Bay

  Docked at Friendship Station

  “I’m telling you,” said Lieutenant Patricia “Guano” Corrick, her fingers tapping on her F-113 Warbird’s throttle assembly, “the reds can’t fly for shit.”

  The fighter bay’s doors remained closed. She waited impatiently for them to open.

  Her gunner, Junior Lieutenant Deshawn “Flatline” Wiley, didn’t seem amused. “You’re higher than the national debt. You realize that the PLANAF are some of the best pilots in the galaxy, yeah?” The People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force. What a name. “The best engines. The best ships. The best missiles.”

  Guano adjusted her heavy ejection suit. “Sure, but nothing beats good ole’ American know-how. Good ole’ American freedom missiles.”

  “Pretty sure,” said Flatline, “that the turn radius on those Chengdu J-84’s beats good ole’ American freedom missiles.”

  J-84s. Basically flying cigars with stubby little thrusters on them. They could barely fight in atmosphere, it was true, but they were quite deadly out in space. “A poor workman blames his tools,” she said. “I can fly rings around them.”

  “Don’t forget about me,” Flatline said. “I’m in here too, you know.”

  “What,” she teased, “you think you’ll have another heart attack?”

  The origin’s of Flatline’s callsign was a sore point. He’d passed out during flight school and had a heart attack. They’d gotten him back, naturally, and cleared him for duty—but only as a gunner. He’d never be a pilot. “Hey,” he said, “screw you.”

  “You wish,” said Guano. She loaded up for more teasing—something about how she’d be there to give him mouth-to-mouth if he needed it—but the Midway’s hangar bay doors jerked and began to open. “Let’s show these chumps why we’re the best there is.”

  “One of these days,” said Flatline, “you’re going to be the death of me. You’re a madwoman.”

  “And yet you agreed to fly with me,” she said, slamming the throttle to the wall. Her Warbird leapt forward, soaring out of the Midway’s hangar bay and into open space, leaving behind it a silver trail of exhaust. “Ultimately, this is all your fault.”

  Ahh, powered flight. Guano eased off the juice, flying her ship in a lazy circle around Friendship Station, her engine leaving a silver half-halo around the outer ring. As they reached the far side, they saw the Chinese ship.

  The Fuqing, the warship that was there to meet Midway. A
massive teardrop bristling with missile launch tubes, guns, and open mouths ready to disgorge fighters. Predatory, sleek, and their…friends.

  “What a fu-king pile of shit,” said Flatline.

  Guano sniggered, angling her craft in a little closer for a better look. “How long’ve you been waiting to use that line, eh?”

  “Since we got here,” confessed Flatline. “Stole the joke off the pilot’s ready room. Some guy thinks he’s funnier than me. Good jokers borrow, great jokers steal.”

  It was probably Yukon. Or Gumball. Those wankers always had a stupid joke on their lips. “I guess that makes you a God of comedy.”

  “Damn straight,” said Flatline, and then his voice changed slightly, becoming more professional. “Hey, it looks like they’re launching a patrol too.”

  She craned her head and spotted them too. Three fighters, bright gleaming silver ships, flew out from one of the open hangar bays, moving as one, drifting toward them. J-84’s.

  “Wonder what frequency they’re using,” said Guano, flipping her ship around and decelerating, the equivalent of giving a playful wave.

  “Wonder if they want to race,” said Flatline, an edge to his tone that suggested he might have been, just a little, serious. “A friendly race. Between friends. Because we’re friends now. And that’s what friends do.”

  Their assigned task was to implement perimeter patrols, and staying on their assigned path was important…but, if she recalled the mission briefing correctly, no explicit limits were placed on the speed of their ships. Guano flipped her ship around again and, once more, opened her throttle.

  The three Chinese fighters flared their engines, pulling out behind them.

  “The race is on,” she said, her little fighter whipping around the station, the g-forces pushing her into her seat.

  A glance in the rearview mirror showed the Chinese fighters falling behind. Her fingers ached as she tried to force the throttle forward. Farther and farther ahead…until finally the Chinese craft slipped behind the station.

  “Woo,” she said, exhaling and releasing a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Dragged their asses.”

  “Glad I didn’t have any money on the Chinese,” said Flatline.

  “Good,” said Guano, slumping back in her seat. “Keep your money. Its value only increases over time anyway.”

  “W-Wait, what?”

  She tapped her microphone. “You ever heard of inflation, idiot?”

  Flatline didn’t reply, a silence she could only attribute to her stunning economic brilliance.

  Beating the Chinese pilots had been too easy… She barely felt the rush she wanted. To be the best, baddest ass fighter jock in the whole galaxy. One didn’t earn that by simply having a slightly faster ship.

  She flipped her ship around and floored it, the inertia crushing her back into her seat. Her own silver trail fell over the cockpit like rain.

  “What the hell?” shouted Flatline, gasping for air. “What are you doing?”

  Time to prove themselves once and for all. The Warbird came to a complete stop, then leapt forward, beginning the long journey around Friendship Station in reverse.

  “Let’s see how brave they are,” said Guano, flying down the trail she had left, retracing her ship’s steps. Just as the Chinese would be.

  Flatline’s silence gave her everything she needed, but she ignored his sulking. His earlier praise of the Chinese would be his undoing this time.

  Around they went, the silver exhaust splattering on the cockpit, a decent amount of it water vapor. Ahead, she could barely see the Chinese ships come around Friendship Station, their engines white hot. “Enjoying the rain?” she asked, gently touching the rudder pedal, keeping her ship within the slowly dissipating silver stream.

  “Break away,” said Flatline, his tone humorless. “You’ve proved your point. C’mon now. This is dangerous.”

  Nope. She adjusted her course, steering along the silver path she had left.

  “C’mon,” said Flatline, voice pitching up. “Guano, this shit is dangerous. If we head on, they won’t be able to tell which parts of you are you and which parts are me.”

  Won’t happen. The Chinese ships drew closer, closer, closer…a three-ship arrow with a tiny gap in the middle. Just big enough for a Warbird to fit. Probably.

  “Oh no. Oh hell no. Break! Break, damn it!” His voice became shrill. “Jesus, they can’t see us in the exhaust trail, Corrick!”

  Nope! Guano laughed like a maniac, rolling her ship so one Chinese fighter would pass over her port wing, and one under her starboard.

  They passed so close she swore she could see through the cockpit, to the startled Chinese pilots within. The lead pilot had a red helmet emblazoned with flames. She yanked back on the stick, the ship pulling up and around into a huge loop, drifting through space.

  “Holy shit, that was awesome!” She squirmed around in her chair, looking over her shoulder at Flatline, her face hurting from smiling so much. “Say that was awesome. Say it.”

  Flatline glared at her, huffing down oxygen like he might, actually, be about to have another heart attack. He glared at her, eyes as rough as stones, and then slowly a smile crept back. “Yeah, okay, that was awesome.”

  She turned back to her instruments, settling into her seat, taking a breath through her breathing mask. The Chinese ships scattered and turned toward her. Probably real pissed off. Ahh, well…

  Then a yellow light flashed on her cockpit dash and a high-pitched alarm wailed. Her blood froze in her veins.

  A missile tracking radar was locked onto her ship.

  “Holy shit,” she said, barely able to believe it. “They’re… They’re going to shoot!”

  Docking Umbilical

  Friendship Station

  Mattis forced one boot in front of the other. He’d been on twenty-kilometer marches, he’d waded through swamps and rainforests and deserts, but the empty ten-meter corridor to Friendship Station was the hardest stretch he could remember.

  A crowd of people were waiting for them, their hands politely folded behind their backs, a mixture of uniforms, American and Chinese. The US forces stood to the left, the Chinese to the right.

  Even on Friendship Station, there was an uncomfortable gap between them.

  “Senator Pitt,” said one of the faces, and immediately, Mattis felt a little better about it all. Martha Ramirez. Reporter for GBC News, obviously a part of the party, the press representative. Fancy seeing her here. She extended her hand to Pitt. “It’s a genuine pleasure to have you aboard.”

  Of course she had brought herself out here to tell a story. Of course she had. Martha… Oh, it had been years. Too many years. Martha’s kindness and a soft voice belied a mighty power, the strength of someone who took no prisoners and always fought to get the truth. There had been something between them—something they both knew would interfere with their careers and which couldn’t be pursued—but her presence brought an easy smile to his face.

  Well, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  “Thanks,” said Pitt, flashing a cheesy grin. “It’s great to be here, Martha.”

  Pitt was almost blocking access to Mattis with his body, but Ramirez stepped around him, extending her hand to Mattis as well. He looked right into those gentle brown eyes. “Admiral,” she said.

  So brief and short, but that was good. She had flattered Pitt—using his civilian title, spinning words about how it was a genuine pleasure, all that garbage. That was diplomacy. The art of telling someone to go to hell and having them enjoy the journey.

  It was like his grandmother had always said. Beware the nice ones.

  “Thank you,” said Mattis, shaking her hand firmly. “I’m very glad to be here.” Ninety percent lies, ten percent truth. Martha being that ten percent.

  Something flickered across Ramirez’s face, the briefest flash of emotion, and he understood. She knew he was just keeping the peace; he didn’t really support this. “Of cou
rse.” She released his hand and gestured to the side. “Admiral, this is the delegation from the People’s Republic of China, led by—”

  Pitt slid in, smiling that wide, fake smile of his. “Miss Ramirez, I’d love to meet the delegation. Mattis is only here as an observer.”

  A moment’s pause. Although not a word was said, and neither of the two people’s expressions changed, Mattis sensed some kind of subtle power play here. Who would fold first?

  “Of course,” said Ramirez, with that perfect, practiced smile of hers. “But it’s impolite to not introduce our whole group. Everyone, this is Senator Pitt.” Then, ever so delicately, ever so deliberately, she put her hand on Pitt’s arm and eased him aside. “Friends, this is Admiral Mattis, representative of the United States Space Navy.”

  “Mister Mattis,” said one of the Chinese delegates, extending her gloved hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Captain Shao.”

  The woman’s name, her voice, was so familiar. Shao had a narrow face, and she spoke with a slight British accent, as though she were from a rich family, or foreign educated, or from their prestigious military academies. Why did it sound so elusively, tantalizingly familiar? Then the truth blasted into his mind.

  “Ahh, Captain Shao,” said Mattis, taking the hand and squeezing it. Tightly. “We’ve met before.”

  “We…have?” asked the woman, inclining her head, eyes flicking down to the joined hands. “I don’t recall.”

  “I remember perfectly.” Mattis held the grip. “At the Battle of Euphrates. The Midway engaged the Changsha at standoff range. The Changsha, that was your command, wasn’t it?” Mattis chuckled softly. “You got us good with those ten-inch guns. Couldn’t penetrate our hull, but they damaged almost every system we had. Midway limped back to space dock on sublight power. A lot of superstructure damage. See, the first salvo struck the upper superstructure, and then the second salvo hit the same spot…so the majority of our casualties were damage control teams. Poor bastards didn’t even see the rounds that killed them.”