by Gus Flory
The 690th sergeant major then took the Solar System Federation flag—black, centered by the yellow sun orbited by the planets—and passed it to Banerjee who ceremonially passed it to Gen. Freitas who then passed the flag to Butcher.
The general paused and both he and Butcher held the staff in front of the formation and the assembled dignitaries and guests.
“You so much as scratch a civilian on this moon and you’re on the first prison barge back to Mars,” Gen. Freitas said through his teeth, still smiling for the cameras. “Keep a tight leash on your aggressive tendencies. Understood, Butcher?”
“Understood, General.”
Butcher took the flag and handed it to his sergeant major who returned it to the flag bearer.
“Bring your units to parade rest!” the deputy commander bellowed.
Banerjee strode to the podium in front of the formation and began a speech about how great his soldiers performed over the past year. He thanked the Governor and the people of Titan. He spoke of how all of them were in good hands with Col. Butcher and the 801st Dragon Brigade.
From the press box, Diego caught sight of Pristina Sage seated in the row behind the Governor. Once he had seen her, he found his eyes unconsciously drawn to her.
“I wrote his speech,” Hsu whispered to Diego as Banerjee droned on at the podium.
“For future reference, brevity is the soul of wit,” Diego whispered back.
She elbowed him in the arm.
“To those of you from the 690th, we have a ship to catch,” Banerjee said. “We’re ready for our long journey home and we wait with anticipation for the moment when we’ll finally reunite with our friends and loved ones. This ceremony today officially ends our mission here on Titan and begins yours. To you, Colonel Butcher and the Soldiers of the 801st, I say, godspeed.”
“Bring your units to attention! Bring your units to present arms!”
The Soldiers saluted in unison. The band played the Solar System Federation Anthem, an overwrought paean to diversity, human rights and humanity’s manifest destiny to unite the Solar System under the democratic rule of one government. The soldiers sang along to the old lines they all knew from a lifetime of singing them—we are a Solar System of immigrants, diversity is our strength, tolerance is our virtue, intolerance we will eradicate—as the band played on.
The emcee announced the conclusion of the ceremony. The soldiers and guests mingled on the hangar floor.
A reporter named Judy Reza from Titan News Network and her cameraman made a break from the press box and rushed toward Col. Butcher who was in the crowd talking to the Forward Command Post commander.
“Col. Butcher, sir, do you foresee the verdict in the Tiberius Marko war crimes trial as a source of potential instability on Titan?”
Reza held the microphone in Butcher’s face as her cameraman hovered over her shoulder.
“Ms. Reza,” Diego said, grabbing her by the back of her arm. “The colonel can schedule an interview with you at another time.”
Col. Butcher waved off Diego and turned to the reporter.
“Our battlegroup is neutral when it comes to political and judicial matters. Our mission here is to provide a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement for all people on Titan. If there is civil unrest, we are here to support the Titan Police and the Governor if requested. That being said, I have full confidence in the institutions of Titan to give Tiberius Marko a fair trial and maintain civil order.”
Diego nodded his head to the colonel. These were the talking points he had coached him on the night before.
“Colonel, if Marko is found innocent of war crimes, the Imcel community will be outraged. If he is found guilty, the Noer will riot. Do you understand the fragility of the situation here?”
“Look, it’s not my habit to speculate on what may or may not happen. What I can tell you is our battlegroup is here to support the rule of law on Titan. Our soldiers are well trained and well equipped and can restore order at a moment’s notice if that becomes necessary. If you’ll excuse me, I have a reception to attend. Major Zanger here can answer any more of your questions.”
The colonel stepped away from the reporter and Diego stepped in front of the camera.
“Now, Judy, you agreed to stay inside the press box.”
“I know. I know. But a good reporter sees her opening and goes for it.”
“Do you have any questions about the battlegroup and our mission?” Diego asked.
“There’s the Governor. Let’s go, Billy.”
She and her cameraman rushed toward Gov. Cone whose bodyguards stepped in and blocked her from reaching him.
“Should I have the MPs drag her off post?” Hsu asked.
“No, I’ll get her. Round up the other reporters and we’ll escort them out.”
Diego was able to get Reza and her cameraman on the tram with the other reporters. They shuttled them to the main gate and walked them out the pedestrian exit, exchanging cards and plans for future interviews and stories.
“They’ve done this transfer of authority story for three years now,” Hsu said. “It’s starting to get stale. By next week, you’ll be lucky if they have any interest in you at all. This place has been practically forgotten by the rest of the Solar System.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way.”
“Well, maybe you’ll get some excitement out of the war crimes trial if largescale civil disobedience breaks out and the Governor activates the battlegroup for crowd and riot control.”
“What’s your take on the war crimes trial?” Diego asked as they rode the tram to the rocket pad.
“The Imcels see Marko as a war criminal. But he’s a war hero to the Noer. Whatever the verdict, someone’s going to be upset. The wounds of war are deep here. But there’s been peace for three years. I don’t think anyone wants a return to the bad old days. Whatever the verdict is, there might be some demonstrations and angry editorials, but the moment will pass. That’s my guess anyway.”
They reached the launch terminal. Hsu was scanned in by a soldier behind a computer screen.
“Have a safe flight home, ma’am.”
Hsu smiled. “Thanks.” She turned to Diego. “I can’t say I’m going to miss this place. But it was a good rotation. I wish you luck, and a good tour on Camp Hammersteel. Make the most of it, sir.”
She shook Diego’s hand.
“Will do, Grace. Have a safe journey home.”
“The Jenner should be loading up on Europa on its way here with the next rotation. Before you know it, you’ll be in my shoes, telling your replacement goodbye.”
“I’m counting the days.”
She saluted him and smiled. “Hey, when you get back to Mars, look me up, would ya?”
He smiled back.
She turned and walked down the passenger bridge to the lander.
Diego milled around the terminal. He looked out the large windows though the reddish haze at the lander on the pad. Beyond were towered walls. Past the walls were jagged mountains. Up in the sky behind the haze was enormous Saturn and its rings.
It truly was a beautiful sight.
In the Martian sky, the moons of Phobos and Deimos were not nearly as spectacular. Phobos was misshapen and oblong but beautiful in its own way. Deimos seemed nothing more than a bright star in the Martian night.
From Callisto, massive Jupiter dominated the lunar sky. Jupiter was an angry giant of boiling clouds—white, red, orange, brown, and yellow bands of swirling colors. Its Great Red Spot had seemed an evil eye watching him, as if biding its time to take his soul. Diego’s memories of Jupiter and its moons brought back feelings of dread, of a stark and perilous time, when death was always stalking, when the hostility of a forbidding environment and fanatic Neo-Fascists seemed out to kill him at every turn.
In comparison, the view of Saturn was sublime, quite possibly the most beautiful view in the Solar System. But the sight filled him with loneliness. He longed for his wife and children.
>
He checked his handheld. More than a week had passed since his arrival with no messages from Havana and the kids. Worry magnified his loneliness.
The longest he’d gone without messages from home was two months when he’d been occupied by combat operations on Callisto. He hadn’t had time to return his wife’s messages, so she stopped sending them.
But this time was different. Why had she gone silent?
Col. Banerjee and the last of the trail party arrived in the terminal and boarded the lander. Diego watched through the window as the passenger bridge retracted. The lander’s rockets ignited with a mighty rumble that shook the floor and rattled the room. The camouflaged craft lifted slowly from the pad. It rocketed upward into Titan’s dim sky.
Diego followed the rocket’s brilliant flare until it disappeared in the haze. He turned from the window and walked back to the tramway.
With the last of the 690th gone, Diego was ready to focus on the mission.
At the end of the week, he and his team entered the Tactical Operations Center for the commander’s update brief. The mood was like the first night of a new show. All the section leaders and their subordinates were in their assigned places in the galleries. Conversations buzzed in the dimly lit room as they waited for the entrance of their commander.
The command sergeant major entered the room. “The brigade commander,” he said.
Conversation ceased and everyone in the room stood at attention.
Butcher strode into the room. “Take your seats,” he said, as he sat at the table on the central floor and looked up at the large screens that dominated the center wall.
The intelligence officer, Maj. Marvin Mangal, stood in front of the commander. “Good morning, sir, commanders, staff. Please direct your attention to the screen.”
Mangal pointed his laser pointer up at one of the big screens which displayed a map of their area of operations along with the weather forecast. He briefed the commander on the weather, which was hazy, cold, with limited visibility and a 35-percent chance of methane rain. He then briefed the current political situation, which was calm with the potential for unrest once the verdict of the Marko war crimes trial was announced. In addition, they were heading into an election cycle. Gov. Cone was being challenged by a Noer woman named Tupo Pelagi, who was surprisingly gaining a sizable following with the Imcel community.
Mangal was followed by the operations officer, then personnel, then logistics, all informing the commander of the brigade’s current situation, using graphs, graphics and charts displayed on the big screen.
The communications and information systems officer completed his brief. Diego stepped in front of the commander as everyone in the galleries looked down at him in the dim light.
“Good morning, sir. Today, following the brief, I’ll be accompanying you to T-FORCE MAIN for a political briefing with the T-FORCE commander. Then we’ll be attending Governor Cone’s Victory Day speech in Cassini City. As we discussed, you’ll be a guest of honor on the stage with General Frietas.” Diego pointed his laser pointer at the seating arrangement up on the screen. “Media will be present, but you’re not scheduled for interviews and we’ll shield you if they ambush you again. I’ve spoken to Governor Cone’s aide and the Governor has set aside time for you to make an office call with him. I’ve prepared talking points for the meeting that I’ve sent to your handheld. Our main theme to get across is that the 801st is motivated, well-trained and fully prepared to support him in the event of civil unrest following the verdict of the Marko war crimes trial.”
“Banerjee and Cone didn’t have the best relationship,” Butcher said. “I want to start off on the right foot.”
“Roger, sir.”
“Where is Cone from?”
“He’s from Earth, sir. North America. He lived in New York City before the war. He attended the University of Arabia Terra on Mars, then served in several Martian municipal positions before being named provincial governor of Io.”
“Io? About five people live there.”
“Three-hundred and twenty, to be exact. But as you know, many in the Solar System Assembly believe Io is of strategic importance to the Federation. Cone successfully completed two terms on Io before being appointed Governor of Titan.”
“I’m going to need a way to break the ice with him.”
“Roger, sir. Like you, he hiked the Appalachian Trail on Earth when he was a young man.”
“Excellent. Earther talk. Always alienates the spacers listening, but I’ll bring it up.”
“That concludes my brief, sir.”
“Thank you, Diego.”
Diego joined LT, Chief and Moxley in their assigned places in the gallery. Once the brief concluded, they exited the Tactical Operations Center and headed to the motor pool. They loaded up into their assigned Lunar Tactical Vehicle, called an LTV.
Moxley pulled the LTV into one of the camp’s vehicle airlocks. Three other vehicles entered with them. Armored guards armed with K4 rifles scanned the team’s badges and then gave a thumb’s up.
The guards retreated to their stations and the air flushed from the airlock. After a moment, the outer doors opened, and the airlock flooded with an orange mist.
Moxley drove the LTV out onto Titan’s orange moonscape. Their vehicle sped along a road following green and blue guide lights.
“Main, this is Dragon Fire 88,” Moxley said into the radio. “Mission 19, SP time is 0900, over.”
“Good copy, Dragon Fire 88. SP at 0900. Out.”
Their vehicle sped down Main Supply Route Magnesium, a hardball road that led to Cassini City.
Every now and then they passed vehicles speeding in the opposite direction toward Camp Hammersteel.
“It’s minus-183 degrees out there,” LT said. “See that boulder? It’s actually H2O. Water is a solid on Titan, hard as granite.”
“This place beats Callisto,” Chief said. “Cruising along of our own volition. No worry about ambushes or IEDs.”
“But it sucks being this far out in the Solar System,” Moxley said. “A year on a troop carrier to get here. Then a year here. Then another year back to Europa. Six more months to Mars. That means two-and-a-half years until we’re home. Me, I’d rather have deployed to Callisto where the action is. Kill me some Neo-Fascists. And get home sooner.”
“That’s your inexperience talking, slick sleeve,” Chief said.
“Just saying, Chief, it’s going to be a long year here if we’re only doing security and stability operations.”
“It would be a longer year on Callisto.”
“Maybe. But we’d be back home a year earlier.”
“Your chances of surviving Callisto or returning home in one piece are not good,” LT said. “Here the survival rate for the last three tours has been nearly 100 percent. The guys here who didn’t make it home got themselves killed through their own stupidity, not from enemy action.”
“So, what you’re saying is, Moxley might not make it home,” Chief said.
“What do you say, sir?” Moxley asked. “Would you rather do another tour on Callisto or waste four years of your life on a deployment to a forgotten rock at the farthest reaches of the Solar System?”
“My year on Callisto was the longest of my life,” Diego said. “But to be home a year earlier… That’s a tough one.”
“You guys have been to combat, so I see your point,” Moxley said. “But I’d take Callisto. I didn’t join the Army to win hearts and minds.”
“If I had the choice, I’d probably take Callisto, too,” LT said. “Just as long as I wasn’t in a line company. Maybe if I had a cushy job at headquarters where I never had to leave the FOB.”
“You mean like the job we have now,” Chief said.
“No, I mean like in the personnel section. Or maybe the diversity officer. Something where I don’t have to go outside the wire. I barely survived Callisto. If I was back humping it with the infantry, my luck might not hold out.”
“Look ther
e,” Moxley said.
Three humans in lunar suits were soaring through the orange haze about 100 meters above the ground. Short, rigid wings were affixed to their backs.
“They’re gliding,” Chief said. “The low gravity and the density of the atmosphere mean all it takes is a running start to glide across the sky. If you catch the wind right, you can glide 30 kilometers on a single jump.”
“Can’t wait to try out the wings on my battle suit,” Moxley said.
Up ahead, the towers and domes of Cassini City came into view. The city was situated at the edge of a plain. Beyond the city, a black mountain range heaved upward like a wall, blocking the horizon.
Traffic got heavier on the route to the city. Small aircraft circled the city’s skyscrapers, setting down on landing pads atop buildings. The aircraft had short wings and stubby bodies and did not look flight worthy, more like flying LTVs with swivel engines. But flight was a simpler matter on a low gravity moon with a dense atmosphere.
Moxley pulled the LTV into an airlock for military vehicles. The doors sealed behind them. Lights flashed and an alarm blared. The orange Titanian air flushed from the chamber. Guards in armored suits and armed with K4 rifles stepped out of their station and walked around the vehicle. They scanned the team’s badges through the glass. The doors in front of them slid open and the guards waved them forward.
Moxley punched in the coordinates to their destination. The LTV exited the airlock and drove beneath Cassini City. Vehicles zoomed through tunnels lined with arrowed green lights. Glowing signs marked exit ramps and told distances to various destinations. Digital billboards advertised restaurants, night clubs, hotels and various products on sale in the city’s markets.
Their vehicle veered onto an exit ramp. The sign over the ramp read: “T-FORCE MAIN.”
The LTV slowed to a stop at a gate manned by armed guards.
Moxley rolled down the driver’s side window and looked up at the guard.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Badges, please.”
Moxley handed him their badges.
The guard scanned them and returned them. “Welcome to T-FORCE MAIN.”
