by Dave Bara
“Peter, for the sake of the mission—”
“You’re the one who said ‘there’s always another mission,’” I reminded her. Then I took her hand and our fingers intertwined. “There is never a good time, Dobrina.”
“I did say that,” she said. “But that was back on Levant. Tomorrow is the most important day of our lives, Peter, and rescuing Impulse is the most important thing to me, at least for right now.”
I just nodded. I had nothing to say to that, so I leaned in once more and kissed her again, passionately.
“The only promise I can make,” I said to her as I pulled back, “is that next time you’ll get the first dance with the prince.”
She smiled hesitantly at me, then took my face in her hands and pulled me in for a final kiss.
“I’d better go. See you in the morning,” she said.
“See you in the morning,” I agreed, then watched her go. I sighed deeply, staring across the room at my lonely, empty bunk. I took one last drink of my wine, then headed straight for my bed.
I was awakened a few hours later by an alert buzzer on my com. It was the night duty officer on the bridge, a lieutenant named Cox. “There’s some sort of disturbance down on the hangar deck, sir. Sergeant Marker called up asking for you,” he said.
I looked at my clock. Half past one. “How urgent is this?” I asked. Cox cleared his throat.
“There seemed to be a lot of commotion in the background, sir, and the sergeant was insistent on my calling you,” Lt. Cox said.
“I’m sure he was,” I said. I sat up in bed and started putting on my socks and underwear. “Couldn’t he just call in some of his marines?”
“I think that was the source of the commotion, sir,” said Cox.
“What?”
“Um, I think the marines were fighting each other, sir,” said Cox.
“The marines? Shit!” I cut the line and scrambled to pull on my shirt and pants, then grabbed my jacket and shoes on my way out the door.
The lifter took me down fourteen decks and then laterally to the hangar deck. I tucked in my shirt but my jacket was still unbuttoned as I tied my shoelaces. As the lifter doors opened I stood quickly and stepped out onto the hangar deck.
Into a riot.
I ducked at the last second as a metal dinner tray came flying at my head and smacked against the lifter’s back wall, leaving a trail of food that looked like spaghetti or lasagna as it fell. I swung low and rolled to my right, ending in a defensive crouch a few feet away from the lifter. It looked as though all sixty marines, Carinthian versus Quantar, were engaged in a knock-down, drag-out brawl across the deck. I looked for Marker but had no luck locating him, though I could hear someone shouting cease and desist orders to no avail.
I took the risk of standing and turned back toward the lifter, coming face-to-chest with a green-clad Carinthian marine the size of a truck. I looked up just as he sent a haymaker my way, with no chance to stop it. A strong hand gripped my collar and pulled me back out the line of fire an instant before my face would have become oatmeal mush.
“Stay down!” yelled a voice in my ear. I looked up to see Colonel Lena Babayan step over me and zap her countryman with a fifty-thousand-volt stun gun. The man stopped for only a second, then brushed the barbs from his arm and returned to the fray with a guttural shout.
“That’s impressive,” I said from the ground. “What do you feed them, anyway?”
The colonel looked annoyed and then helped me to my feet. “Do you have a better idea?” she said. I looked around the room as fists flew and battle cries filled the air. It was mayhem. Then I noticed the door to the hangar deck control room was wide open.
“As a matter of fact I do!” I yelled over the din. I grabbed her by the hand and we made for the control room, dodging flying bodies, furniture, and food as we went. We got to the door and I yanked her inside, then slammed the door shut against the chaos.
“What are you going to do?” she said, her face flushed with frustration and anger. I wondered if I had angered her by tossing her in here so roughly, then decided that in the current situation niceness counted for nothing. I looked up and saw the red emergency decompression handle under glass on the wall behind her.
“I’m going to finish this, now!” I said, and ran across the control room. I slammed the glass with my elbow and it shattered to the floor, then I reached in and yanked down on the handle as hard as I could. The lights on the deck flickered out and a red flash replaced them, accompanied by a blaring alert claxon.
“Warning! Emergency decompression in thirty seconds! Warning! Emergency decompression in twenty-eight seconds! Warning . . .” the emergency voice droned on.
“Let’s see if that gets their attention!” I said. Colonel Babayan looked worried.
“You’re not serious!” she said. I glared at her.
“I am if they are!”
By the twenty-second mark all the fighting had stopped and the men began banging on the control room door and windows, cursing at me. I stood with my hands on my hips staring each one of them down. At the ten-second mark the cursing had turned to fearful pleading. At five seconds I slammed the lever back into place and the alarm shut off, the normal room lights coming back on. Babayan looked at me with what I fancied was admiration on her face.
“Nice work,” she said.
“We’re not finished yet,” I said, nodding to the mob. “Let’s go tame the apes.” I went to the door and unlocked it, stepping back out onto the hangar deck, pushing marines aside as I went.
“Form lines by home world and rank!” I barked at the marines. I let them shuffle around dejectedly for a few seconds before I took the Quantar marines to one side of the bay while Colonel Babayan gathered hers on the other side. Marker emerged from the pile and stood next to me, a rising shiner on his face.
“You were supposed to prevent this,” I whispered as he took up his station, “not get involved in it!”
“What could I do?” Marker said stiffly. “The old rivalries run deep. Plus, they insulted the queen.” I waved him off and turned to the marines.
The deck was littered with empty beer cans, garbage, food, and traces of blood from the brawl. Nearly every man in the corps had a mark of some kind on him. I walked up and down the lines, saying nothing for several minutes. Colonel Babayan did the same, but deferred to me as senior officer to mete out punishment. I couldn’t decide what to do, but I knew I didn’t want to look weak in front of the men, so I acted.
I went to the open space halfway between both lines of marines—no man’s land.
“This, gentlemen, is a disgrace,” I said to both sides of the deck, pacing now back and forth between them. I used a quiet, direct tone of voice, then raised it with my next command.
“Each one of you are to pair off with a counterpart, one Quantar, one Carinthian, preferably the man or woman you were fighting with. I want this deck cleaned in five minutes or I’ll pick five of you from each side and throw you in the brig on C rations for a week! Now move!” I shouted.
Move they did. C rations were minimal water and only oatmeal gruel to eat once a day, enough to scare any man, especially the cuisine-loving Carinthians. The deck was rapidly cleared of debris and put back together with minimal incident. One of the Carinthians even found a mop and took it to the floor. They were back into ranks in four and a half minutes.
I looked around the deck, standing between the two units, unsure what to do next. I was keenly aware that not only they but also Captain Maclintock would be judging me based on my next move. I looked over to the lounge area, hastily constructed out of bunk foam, chairs, and packing pads. It was supposed to be a common area for the men to play cards or backgammon or chess. Instead it had doubled as a beer hall.
There was a large round table in the center of the lounge, low set with closed sides. It was rather solid looking
, and it gave me an idea.
“At ease, gentlemen. We’re going to gather in the lounge. I want you to pair off again, one Carinthian and one Quantar marine, then sit around the table. Now!” I yelled. The marines shuffled into order and sat as instructed. Marker and Babayan gave me peculiar looks but said nothing and stood together outside the ring. I went to a wall console and shut down most of the deck lights, then parted a pair of marines with my boot as I made my way to the table. I stepped up on top and tucked in my shirt, buttoning my jacket before I addressed the crowd.
“Punishing you in any conventional way would be pointless,” I said. “I think you understand that, if you understand nothing else. Tomorrow we drop to Levant B, and from there beyond the gate, to Corant or Altos, to see what’s left of the First Empire and find out if they’ve harmed our comrades aboard Impulse.” I paused to let that sink in. Very few eyes met mine.
“So you have to be ready, and I have the godforsaken job of making you ready,” I crossed my arms and stepped around the table, addressing every part of the crowd as I went. “I said any conventional punishment would be pointless. So now you will get an unconventional one. Your punishment, ladies and gentlemen, will be to listen to what I have to say.”
I looked at the faces around me. They were curious now, at least.
“There is a story in our family history, the Cochrane family history, a story of the final battle of the old war.” This seemed to raise their interest.
“Have any of you ever heard the story of MacEachern’s Run?” I said. There were a handful of nods and raised hands, all of them from Quantar marines. “Good, then this will be educational for most of you.” I cleared my throat once and then started in, pacing in circles with my hands on my hips for dramatic emphasis.
“MacEachern was a Quantar Navy speedwing pilot at the Battle of Carinthia.” Now I had their full attention.
“Vat’s a speed-ving?” asked one of the Carinthian marines in a heavy Teutonic accent.
“A speedwing is a tri-winged, single-seat fighter, the kind of ship made obsolete by coil flak cannons and ship-to-ship missiles,” I said.
“Now, MacEachern was so obscure that no one even knows what his first name was or where he came from, but we do know he was a Union pilot. His ship was damaged during the battle. He took a hit and it knocked his inertial dampers out. His flight controls and navigation were gone. He couldn’t turn or maneuver. He couldn’t land. He couldn’t eject or go in reverse. All he could do was fly a straight line. He struggled and fought with his controls, trying with all his might to turn his fighter back into the battle.” All eyes in the room were on me now. I felt like a schoolteacher at story time.
“Eventually, MacEachern got some control of his ship and he managed to turn it back toward the battle. But when he did, he saw the truth: the Union Navy was losing. He had no chance of making it through the flak, the coil cannon fire, the Carinthian heavy fighter wings, the cannon of the frigates and the destroyers and the dreadnoughts. So he did the only thing he could do, he pointed his tiny ship toward Imperious, the Carinthian Navy flagship, and fired his impeller engines to full, turning himself into a missile.”
I went down to my haunches, getting closer to my audience. I had them in my grasp now.
“Now, normally using impellers on full in close combat would get you killed very fast, simply by running into something at high speed. But MacEachern shot through the first line of heavy fighters,”
“The Carinthians gave chase, but MacEachern was too fast for them to catch. Then the picket line of coil fire, crossing beams of orange and green, flared across his path. He lost his vertical stabilizer, he lost part of his wing; but he kept going. It was suicide, but then he’d known that when he fired up his engines,”
“Now, he was being picked up by Imperious and her defenders. Frigates moved to fire at him, and missed. Missiles came in a nonstop barrage from defensive platforms. Imperious herself tried to move, to escape, firing cannon and flak charges at will. But still MacEachern came on,”
“There were voices in his earpiece: shouts of encouragement, prayers of hope, and only prayer could help the Union Navy now. He sped on, frantically looking at his unused missiles, praying they would stay attached to his wings. MacEachern was a rocketing bomb, an uncontrolled missile with a man inside. But he held the stick steady and true.” I paused again, then started pacing out my circle again, but in the reverse direction.
“MacEachern looked up one last time. Imperious filled his vision. Through his burned-out canopy he could see the great lady trying to escape, but she was too late. MacEachern screamed his last, a war cry of rage and pain and glory and sorrow that they say echoed through the ansibles from the far reaches of the empire to the royal palace itself!”
Every eye was on me now.
“MacEachern slammed his fighter into the base of Imperious’ conning tower. His missiles exploded, and his hydrazine fuel, what was left of it, ignited. The tower burst as the fuel from his fighter mixed with oxygen and hydrogen tanks aboard Imperious, and then twisted and split in half.”
“Imperious fell out of control, colliding with the Emperor’s Galley,” I smacked a fist into my open palm for emphasis, “destroying them both in a blaze of white fire. Frigates and support ships by the dozens were destroyed. Their loss was a shock to the defending Carinthians. It’s said the grand duke himself fled at this sight, that he left his home world for the safe haven of Corant.”
I put my hands to my hips. “We’ll probably never know the truth of it. But what we do know is that the destruction of Imperious and the Emperor’s Galley stunned the Royalist Navy, so much so that they scattered, allowing the Union fleet to escape to Quantar and Minara, Sorel and Pendax. Five days later the Feilberg family, negotiating for the emperor, concluded a cease-fire agreement via ansible, and the Constitution Wars were over. Neither side talked to the other for a hundred and fifty years, until a decade ago, when the Earthmen landed on Quantar and Carinthia on Reunion Day.”
I looked over the crowd. You could hear a pin drop on the deck. I sighed heavily and spoke softly.
“That can never be allowed to happen again,” I said. I put out my hand to the crowd. “Now gather ’round.” They did as instructed, placing their hands over mine or on the shoulders of their neighbors. I bowed my head and closed my eyes.
“Dear God, hear our prayer. Tomorrow these brave young men and women go into a dangerous situation, against forces unknown. Make them ready. Keep them safe. Guard these marines, and give them a spirit of unity as they fight. And deliver our comrades aboard Impulse back to us safe and sound,” then I opened my eyes. “Amen.”
The marines softly echoed my last word. I stepped down from the platform and broke through the circle, not looking back nor glancing at Marker or Babayan, making straight for the lifter.
Behind me, all was quiet on the hangar deck.
To L-4b
By 0730 Dobrina, Layton, and I were on the flight deck of one of Starbound’s bulwark shuttles, programming in our flight path and prepping the cabin for our drop to the surface of L-4b. Marker and his marine troop of mixed Carinthian and Quantar marines arrived fifteen minutes later in full EVA suits, decked out as if they expected trouble. I was pleased that the two sides seemed to have made peace after the previous night’s escapade. Colonel Babayan called at 0755 to confirm that her shuttle was ready as well.
I decided to take a stroll through the cabin before the launch. The marines themselves were impressive, in a size-is-everything-and-I-can-kill-you-with-my-dog-tags kind of way. Most of them said nothing and none of them would meet my gaze as I passed them in the personnel bay. All of them were sporting cuts, bruises, or black eyes from the previous night’s festivities. I hoped their lack of acknowledgment of me was due to a sense of shame about their behavior, but I couldn’t be sure. I stood in the bay, arms behind my back and watching them, saying nothing but
not moving to leave until they were all strapped in like little tin soldiers in their toy box. Marker completed his lockdown and then gave me a thumbs-up. I took that as my signal to head back up to the flight deck, don my EVA suit helmet, and strap myself in.
After the final flight checks we were away at low speed, dropping out of Starbound’s landing bay and running as silently as possible toward B and the cannon complex. Dobrina was all business as we made quick progress toward the surface. She seemed anxious to get on with the mission. I switched my com over to a private channel with Marker as we made our descent.
“Your marines are certainly impressive,” I said. Marker chuckled in response.
“After last night how could they fail to impress you?” he said. I laughed.
“I hope I made some impression on them,” I said.
“Oh, you did, sir,” replied Marker. “They probably won’t follow you to the gates of hell but I think they’ll provide cover while you make a run at it.” I laughed again.
“Look, Commander, we need to face some facts here,” Marker continued. “These men don’t trust each other. We’ll have to instill that in them. Missions like this can only help.”
“I hear you, Sergeant,” I said. “Just make sure they’re ready when we need them.”
“Will do, Commander.” I cut the com line and switched to Dobrina’s channel.
“Sixteen minutes to landing,” I said. “Any last-minute thoughts?”
“None that don’t involve a marine brawl on my hangar deck,” she said.
“That’s been handled,” I quickly replied.
“Has it?” she questioned without taking her eyes from her board. I shifted a bit in my chair.
“You have my guarantee, Commander Kierkopf,” I said.
“Good,” she replied. “I’ll hold you to that.” With that, the conversation seemed over. We were clearly back to a military standing between us and I didn’t want to ruffle her feathers with inquiries about where our relationship was going, even if I did have questions. I checked my vector display again. We were making good time. I switched back to Marker’s channel.
