As he finished, Harry abruptly realized he’d almost yelled the last couple sentences. Raising his voice to a man, who, if he wasn’t exactly his commanding officer, was certainly sufficiently in charge to have Harry tossed out an airlock.
“Got it out of your system?” Murphy asked, smiling thinly.
“I’m sorry, but—yeah. Sorry.” Harry took a drink, ignoring the flat taste of water re-filtered countless times. It gave him something to do besides look at his boss.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet,” Murphy said, his eyes cold, “this is a forlorn hope. I didn’t ask for this. None of us asked for this. Yet here we are. The facts of the case are not in dispute and the hard truths I’ve previously explained to each member of this team still stand. The world we knew is literally history. The family you were lucky enough to have in 1993 is gone. Somewhere on Earth you may have adult great-grandchildren, but you’re not a memory to them. Hell, you aren’t even a book report for some great-great-grandkid’s school assignment. The people, and hell, even the culture, we knew are as dead as they believed you to be after you were declared missing. We’re all in the same boat, and time has fucking well moved on. Are you clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Harry said miserably, rubbing his forehead hard enough to draw the skin white across his brow.
“Are you fucking clear?” Murphy asked again, almost hissing.
There was a long pause.
“Yeah. I’m clear,” Harry replied again, this time looking the other man in the face.
“Then you will stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Murphy replied more normally. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a few moments. “We’ve all lost everything. Maybe we can get back and maybe we can’t. All that’s left is hope and each other. Some of the Lost are so broken that they can’t cope, not now and maybe never. When we picked who we were bringing out of cryo-suspension, I thought you could hack it. Was I wrong?”
“I can hack it,” Harry said, instantly. Being able to endure anything was the closest thing to a SEAL religion there was. Or had been, anyway.
“So, we get to figure out how to do the impossible,” Murphy said, warming to the topic. “The SpinDogs won’t risk everything by landing in force. Their support for large-scale surface operations and directly confronting the Kulsians is contingent on a demonstration of our superior warfighting skills. A successful demonstration.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Harry felt guilty, not as much for losing his cool, even momentarily, but because he wasn’t living up to his image of himself.
“You ever heard of Murphy’s Law?” the major asked.
“Practically live by it, in the Teams,” Harry answered automatically. Everyone who spent enough time in the military knew that whatever could go wrong, would go wrong. A deep understanding that the universe was waiting to trip you up had spawned several other sayings among those who took up the profession of arms.
“Two is one, one is none” and “tracers work both ways” as well as the ever popular “fifteen minutes prior to fifteen minutes prior” mantra intended to promote punctuality—and many others—were the half-humorous watchwords by which modern soldiers lived. All were intended to counter the reality of Murphy’s Law.
Harry suddenly and belatedly made the connection to his new boss’ surname.
“Glad to hear it,” Murphy said decisively. “We’re going to break that law. We’re going to plan ahead for things to go wrong in order to make sure they end up right. That starts with you. You are going to come up with a plan making Murphy’s Law a problem for the other guy. We’re going to be a sharp, unexpected stick in the opposition’s tender spots. Now, have you settled on who’s going with you?”
“This is going to be a variation on an exchange training mission, so whoever goes with me should have worked with indigs before,” Harry answered, using the abbreviated form of “indigenous” to refer to the local population. “This isn’t a job for junior cadre. Rodriguez is the best candidate. He also has the best Ktor language rating of the available senior enlisted.”
Most of the Lost Soldiers had spent days in the Dornaani cruiser’s virtual reality bay, receiving accelerated Ktor language training at ten-to-one time compression. The unpleasant experience had left them with persistent migraines for a few days. However, they were all now conversant, though not perfectly fluent, with the dominant language of the system.
In addition to his language score, Rodriguez’s folio called out several missions in the sixties with the Cambodians, the South Vietnamese, and the Hmong. On the personal side, it highlighted his readiness to rebel against authority figures, his womanizing, and the resulting children in Saigon, Manila, and elsewhere, which struck him as a bit odd, until Murphy explained something of the Ktoran preoccupation with genetics. He was also suspected of having fragged a newly promoted Army officer after that man’s decisions had led to the death of Rodriguez’s best friend in-country.
Speaking of which, Harry had initially been shocked at the detail in the personnel folders of the men from which he could choose. There was a lot more there than the basics of a military service record. It was a cross section of their life, including family details, bank statements, and school transcripts. It was probably more information than the subjects had even assembled for themselves. Which meant…
Might as well get it all out on the table.
Harry tapped the personnel folders he’d reviewed for this operation. “Roj, I’m betting the British spook you mentioned is your source of information on everyone, including me.”
“No bet.”
“Then you know why I was on the helicopter.” Harry made it a statement, not a question.
“I know, Harry,” Murphy answered, nodding. “And, frankly, I can’t see the conditions we’re under are going to help. If you haven’t figured it out, the group Olsloov left behind were the last to be roused from cold sleep for one reason or another. We weren’t woken by the Ktor, and we weren’t initially revived by our own allies. The files the Dornaani recovered were remarkably complete. Your decorations, correspondence, counseling records, everything. Bottom line: your last CO could afford to send you back stateside because he had options. I don’t. What’s more, you and I are from very nearly the last batch of Terrans the Ktor kidnapped. We share the same military and cultural context, which means a lot. And, like you said, if you screw this up, you’re gonna be stuck down there. Seems like pretty good motivation, if you ask me.”
Harry watched as the senior man took another pull from his mug. It trembled very slightly as he sat it down, and Murphy grimaced.
“As long as you’re down there, check to see if they have anything better than this dishwater tea.”
“I’m hoping for some coffee, Roj,” Harry said, extending an olive branch.
“Hell, if they have real coffee, I’ll come retrieve you myself.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fourteen
R’Bak
Volo squinted at the horizon, trying to match the outline of the rolling hills with the terrain relief on the expedition map. Ignoring the pack straps cutting into his shoulders, he glanced down at the plastic-coated map to confirm the bearing of the three peaks dominating the view to the east during their march. Although he’d begun the second morning of their hike with a precise location fix, courtesy of the just-emplaced Dornaani stealth-sats, he needed two, or preferably three, of the very small satellites to be in line-of-sight at the same time. Another such intermittent conjunction would occur this night, so navigation wasn’t the top issue. His little group’s location was the current problem.
The automated evasion by their drop capsules had placed them far away from the usual range of their trading partners on the surface. This meant much more travel on foot and an associated delay. It also meant considerably more discomfort.
Before turning to face his companions, he carefully groomed his expression into neutrality, erasing any sign of the discomfort his tailored boots or bo
rrowed Terran backpack were inflicting. His brother Stabilo, the most recent Zobulakos to have landed on R’Bak, had cautioned Volo to rigorously condition himself in the high-gee pod of Second Spin. At the time, Volo believed his brother’s outlandish claims about conditions on the surface were exaggerations designed to deter the youngest of their family, or even plant the seed of failure in Volo’s mind, leaving the way open for Stabilo to remain the favored son. The unexpected arrival of the Dornaani cruiser and its cargo of rootstock humans had radically accelerated the schedule for Volo’s first visit to the surface, and, while his wind was good, the soreness of his feet and joints was distracting at best, and potentially a dangerous weakness at worst. Such was not the way of their family, where personal strength vied with utility and efficiency as the most prized qualities.
“We’re proceeding as planned,” Volo said, looking over his shoulder to the next man. The over-muscled Terran officer had paused several steps behind him, endlessly looking to both sides. “I updated the satlink with your situation report. We should get a reply tonight.”
“Sounds good,” Tapper replied, nodding but otherwise showing no expression. Establishing some rapport with the archaic humans was important to Volo’s mission, but the larger man, the officer, had been difficult to approach. Volo watched him scratch his neck, and, unbidden, his own dirty collar began to itch almost unbearably. Instead of giving in to the weakness, he turned to continue the march, suppressing the desire to scratch. Volo despised Tapper’s casual acceptance of the sweat and dirt coating them both. It was a reflection of the Terran’s barbarous people, who, by their own admission, mostly still scrabbled on the surface of their homeworld.
Volo’s father, the Arko Primus of the entire habitat, regarded these humans as a potential resource even more valuable than the centuries-old space wreckage the SpinDogs used as their principle source of refined alloys. Finding a rich hulk was the sort of event that could guarantee the succession of a favored heir. These Terrans, and their patrons, the Dornaani, might change everything, and the success of this mission would leapfrog Volo ahead of all his siblings. Better, the Terrans were terribly naive and had accepted everything the Primus had told them. Of course, most of the facts about the millennium-old conflict between Kulsis and R’Bak were not in dispute.
The two halves of the binary star system had been sought out by three separate waves of Ktoran outcasts. Volo’s people, the SpinDogs, had been part of the second wave, and were surprised to find both systems already inhabited. The greatest power was on Kulsis, the habitable planet of the main system. Fortunately, there had been no sign that the modest Kulsian presence in space was poised for journeys to the companion system, so the second wave settled on R’Bak. Although the details were sketchy, the later generations of those settlers were split by disputes, one of which led to a sizeable group being sent off-planet: the ancestors of the SpinDogs. Given the unpleasant relations with their dirtside cousins, Volo’s forebears elected to build their communities in secret locations. This protection against local aggression was ultimately what spared them from the out-system depredations that began about a century later. And so, the small SpinDog civilization remained hidden, sheltering on asteroids scattered among the uninhabitable planets of the ecliptic, biding its time.
Volo suppressed a smile. What the Terrans didn’t know was that the recent death of the Matriarch was an opportunity for his family, and for Volo personally. That these Terran visitors felt partially responsible was a useful lever he would use to steer their behavior. Once he linked up with the tribe which had previously traded with the SpinDogs, he could exploit the good relationship built by his father and siblings on previous excursions to the surface to sway the Sarmatchani toward the Terran’s plan. The natural suspicion the tribesmen had for his people was nothing compared to their visceral hate for the Kulsians and their satraps. Their instinctive distrust of the Terrans would help Volo establish and maintain control.
Volo paused again at the top of yet another hill and wiped his sweaty face. He looked around skeptically, but the terrain they’d been traversing offered little of interest. He glanced over his shoulder again. Both Terrans were ascending stolidly, apparently unaffected by the absurdly high gravity and the increasing heat.
Whether these visitors could actually defeat the Kulsians or not remained to be seen. A win would interrupt the cycle of destruction wrought by the Kulsians’ “harvest” and the surface turmoil caused by the weather effects of the two stars at periastron. A loss could still mean a chance to directly ally with the Dornaani, if they ever returned—and if all the Terrans had conveniently died, of course. Either way, Volo would squeeze every opportunity from his temporary position of advantage and become the one to succeed his father.
* * *
The sand shifted under Harry’s boots, making each stride that much more difficult as he followed several meters behind Volo. Despite his muscular frame and what he’d been promised was a gravity slightly lower than Earth’s, the weight of the pack was an uncomfortable irritant and his back was really starting to ache. The well-worn Vietnam-era ALICE ruck was not the most ergonomic bit of kit Harry had used, carrying most of the weight too low on his spine, but more American equipment from that era was available than any other. Rodriguez had accepted his gear without comment, but the last time Harry had seen some of this stuff, it had been gathering dust on the shelves of an Army surplus store.
Out of long habit, he’d slung his equally dated M-14 rifle so he could keep one hand on the grip, patrol fashion. Harry watched ahead as the SpinDog followed the narrow game trail winding through the swaying, hip- to shoulder-high yellow saw grass.
Over the course of the day, the earlier sparse forest had largely thinned as the little party hiked further west. Occasional bare trunks of dead trees poked up here and there from the tall, dry grass. Some past violent weather event had shaped the sand into a series of rolling hills, each rising as much as fifty meters high, and, while the trail they followed mostly wound between successive ridges, they inevitably spent a lot of time going up and down.
Apart from looking straight ahead or down toward his boots, Volo seemed unconcerned with their surroundings.
Harry paused for a moment to look over his shoulder. An equal distance behind, Rodriguez had also stopped, scanning their back trail, which reassured Harry nearly as much as Volo’s casual manner irritated him. After a short interval, Rodriguez turned and continued, and Harry caught his eye while making the hand signal for a rally point. After receiving a nod in return, Harry lengthened his stride to close the gap to the lead member of their little group.
“Volo, we’ll take a water break,” Harry told their guide, who was stopped, consulting a partially folded plastic map. If Volo was unhappy to be using the same weapon that Harry carried, instead of the boxy carbines Harry had seen on Second Spin, he wasn’t showing it. The nonchalant way Volo had slung his M-14 backwards, muzzle-down from one shoulder, allowed the SpinDog to use both hands. It also increased the time needed to deploy the weapon.
Harry bit back a caustic remark and watched Volo as he looked up the ascending slope of the track, then to the horizon ahead, and back to the map, consulting some spidery hand-written notes on the margin, as he’d periodically done throughout their march. He certainly wasn’t in any hurry.
“How much further to the rendezvous coordinates?” Harry prompted. “I’d like to stop while there’s enough light to make camp.”
“It’s dusk already,” the slightly built young man replied, looking at his wristcom to double-check some reading. He didn’t like what he saw and shook his head. “Midday tomorrow, perhaps the following day. The automated evasion response during our drop pushed our landing further north and east than we’d hoped. This morning, I had a solid microsat position, but now I must estimate. We’re in the harvest fief claimed by the J’Stull, satraps to Kulsis, but they rarely venture this far from their cities. We seek a branch of the Sarmatchani who are distant kin to the g
roup we trade with at the poles. They’ll be found in this direction.”
“So as long as it’s still these Sarmatchani we link up with, it’s all good then,” Rodriguez said as he strode up, making the statement a question.
Harry looked at the NCO, wondering how the man was dealing with the impossibility of this situation. Rodriguez absentmindedly worked a bright orange plastic toothpick in his jaws as his eyes continued to look restlessly opposite the direction Harry was facing. His rifle moved to match his eyes, dipping now and again as the experienced sergeant kept the muzzle from flagging his teammates. “If they’re expecting company, I mean?”
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