The Terran Mandate

by Michael J Lawrence

  When Major Walker limped to the freighter to pick up one of the packages, Petty Officer Graham set down his own bundle and clapped a hand on Walker's shoulder. "As you were sir."

  "Dammit, Doc, I can haul twenty pounds a few feet."

  "Give it another day or two, sir," Graham said. "The heal pack is working well and you'll be tip-top by then." Walker pulled his shoulder away and tried to lift his leg when Graham gently pressed a boot on top of his foot. Walker strained to lift the injured leg, but he couldn't overcome the weight of Graham's foot. He glared at his corpsman. Graham just lifted his brow.

  "Fine," Walker said, and ducked into the supply tent. Looking over the growing pile brought from Dirt Hill, he asked the First Sergeant, "How long will this carry?"

  The sergeant tapped his tablet and scrolled through a few pages. "About 30 days, sir."

  "Close enough," the Paladin said. "Make sure the men get fed first."

  "Yes sir."

  It was a ritual after every supply delivery for the men who maintained the Cats, provided security, cooked and performed all the mundane tasks that kept his company running to eat the first meal from the new supplies. More than any unit in the MEF, the Cataphracts required a substantial support infrastructure to keep them running and ready to fight. Now that they were on their own, the men who took care of them were even more important.

  "And keep the numbers to yourself," Walker added.

  Captain Holt ducked in to join them. "This is the last one," he said, dropping a small burlap sack of root vegetables on top of the pile.

  "How are the colonists holding up?" Walker asked.

  "Pilot says they're looking pretty bad. I get the feeling they're giving us more than they can spare."

  Walker rubbed his chin and let out a short sigh. "What did you tell him?"

  "I told him to leave half behind next time."

  "That's good, Captain. Work in a supply run to MEF -" He stopped himself short. Both Captain Holt and the Company Sergeant toed the dirt with their boots. "Yeah, right," Walker continued. His shoulders sagged as he studied the pile of sacks and crates, remembering there would be no more supply runs from the MEF. "Whatever happens needs to happen soon."

  "Top, would you excuse us?" Captain Holt asked. After the Company First Sergeant stepped out of the tent, Holt turned to Walker and asked, "What do we do when this runs out?"

  "I don't know." Walker bent down with a grunt and pawed at the supplies.

  "Are we sure we're doing the right thing here?" Holt asked.

  "We're not going anywhere, Captain."

  Captain Holt studied Walker for a moment and said, "I wish you would reconsider."

  "Are you kidding?'' Walker asked. He winced as he tapped the wound on his leg. "There's nowhere to go."

  "I'm just thinking of the men, sir."

  "So am I."

  Walker stepped out of the tent and turned to look at the Pyramid. Everything on Shoahn'Tu was unremarkable once you got used to the idea that it was new. He imagined the original colonists disembarking from the Exodus Fleet to find themselves in a new world, a place full of promises and dreams - a future. How long had it taken them to grow weary of the endless deserts, the stanchions of cord trees and a future that brought nothing more than a daily struggle to just survive? How did a man carry on like that, knowing it wasn't going to get any better?

  But the Pyramid, that was different. With its pulsating blue glow and its peak reaching to the heavens, it was the one thing that said Shoahn'Tu was very much another world. And although it hadn't provided the colony with anything useful, he couldn't help but hope that somebody besides himself felt a sort of spiritual boost from its presence. If the promise of tomorrow wasn't something he could believe in, there was at least the promise of some day.

  Except now he knew better. The Pyramid was something that went back to a fundamental truth: they didn't belong here - even if they had nowhere else to go. In its own way, it was a sentinel against intruders. There was something more here - something that he knew had to remain locked behind the slopes of the Pyramid. Whether or not the colonists decided to survive was their choice. His mission was to ensure they had the option. What, exactly, that mission was, he still didn't know.

  Captain Holt stood next to the open flap on the command tent, watching him. "Maybe this isn't our fight, sir," he said.

  Walker lowered his gaze from the slopes of the Pyramid and looked at his Executive Officer, a man he had trusted with his life more times than he could count.

  "Maybe so, Captain."

  Something about him had changed, though. Ever since their arrival at the Pyramid, Captain Holt had seemed reluctant to be there, almost as if there was an option right in front of Walker's face that nobody was willing to say out loud.

  "Or," Walker said, "maybe it's everybody's fight."

  Puzzle

  In a just universe, the honor of men like the Paladin would prevail. But Captain Holt knew better. He did not live in a just universe. As the rest of the camp slept, he walked towards one of the pilots pulling sentry duty along the perimeter. With a rifle slung over shoulder, the sentry snapped a hand salute as Holt got closer. Holt returned the salute and said, "How does it feel to carry a rifle for a change, Marine?"

  "Every Marine a rifleman," the pilot responded.

  As he passed by, the sentry said, "You have the password, sir?"

  "You bet. You need it in case you don't recognize me?"

  "Well, now, I wouldn't be manning my post properly if I let somebody through who looks like the XO but is actually the enemy in disguise. That's what passwords are for."

  Holt chuckled. "Good man. I'll be back in a bit. Just want to take a look around."

  "Be careful, sir."

  The sentry's voice drifted off behind him as Holt picked up his pace and walked away from the camp. When he got far enough away that he couldn't be heard, he scurried into the dark expanse beyond the perimeter until he was beyond the range of any radio equipment that might pick up his signal. Even if they intercepted it, they wouldn't be able to decipher its contents, but it would mean a lot of questions he wouldn't be able to answer when they discovered the source of the signal was in the palm of his hand.

  He punched a small button on the transmitter and held it in the air so it could take a random sample of the minute fluctuations in air temperature. A green light flickered, confirming that the device had enough samples to generate an encryption key he would use to scramble the transmission and a corresponding key the recipients would use to decipher it. He tapped the button again and it faded to a steady yellow while his radio and the receiver at the other end exchanged a flurry of data and instructions used to establish the encrypted link. The light switched back to green and he keyed the small microphone.

  "Tiger One Tiger Papa One. Message. Do not answer. Immediate. Skyrider egress 12 hours Victor two three one Papa Delta India offset three nautical miles. Further route unknown. Out." He punched a button to transmit the message and waited for the green light to flicker one more time and then go dark as the transmitter deleted the encryption keys it had generated for the message. He closed his hand around the device, looked up into the night sky and let out slow breath. He stuffed it back in his pocket and walked quietly back to camp.

  The Terran Guard operator at the other end recorded the message, stripped the call signs and then forwarded it to the S-2 listening post at MEF headquarters. Colonel Harris rubbed his chin as the message scrolled across the monitor.

  "Where did we get this?" he asked the operator.

  "Came directly from the Terran Guard, sir."

  Harris closed his eyes as his mind struggled to untangle the logic of the meaning behind the message. That there was a pilot heading for a navigation beacon that somebody thought they should talk to was clear enough, but his business was about unraveling the meaning behind the meaning of things. He couldn't find any layers to strip away, only that the Terran Guard was helping him with information about some
thing that probably had to do with the ceasefire and the ongoing hunt for the Paladin. None of it settled into place where he could catalog it in his mind as one more piece to a puzzle. The message itself was the puzzle. The only question he could think of that was worth answering was, how did they know? And why didn't he know it before they did? What bothered him most was that the message didn't come from somebody he knew, and yet the Terran Guard wanted him to know about it. The word crawled into his awareness and danced in his mind: setup.

  "Forward it to Bravo One Nine and have her meet whoever this freighter pilot is."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And keep a lid on it. I want to see if anybody comes snooping around about this."

  "Yes, sir."

  Harris stretched his arms and yawned, then stepped out of the listening post. He traipsed through the compound until he reached the smear of blackened dirt where the Paladin had fired his plasma round. Marines shooting Marines, Terran spies passing information back to the MEF - it was all becoming a mess that somebody didn't want cleaned up. The question was: who?

  His immediate thought was General Lane, but the man wasn't smart enough to make two trips around a tactical board without getting lost. It was too bad the MEF had too many officers who were well suited for analyzing logistics tables and not enough with the skills needed to make good decisions. It occurred to him the General could have been considered a traitor, but the man wasn't even smart enough for that.

  The other side of that equation was, of course, General Godfrey. Misguided but sincere, he understood that all she ever wanted was control so she could run things the way they were supposed to be run, if The Way was something they could all agree was the right way. Which they did not. She didn't trust Lane as far as she could throw him, which proved she was at least smarter than he was. But Harris wasn't about to believe that she was ready to just give the Exodus Colony free reign of the Highlands and put General Lane into a comfy political post. That was most definitely not in accordance with The Way.

  Harris scuffed the edge of the scorch mark, scattering clean dust along its edges. The Paladin had been smart enough to get clear of all this before it had even started. Well, most of the way. If he hadn't been laid up with a wounded Cat, he would have made a clean break.

  Harris stopped walking and rubbed his chin when he realized it was Major Walker who had made the first real move in this little dance. Which meant he knew something. Lt. Simmons already had orders to report the moment she and Dekker found the Paladin. When they did, he would have to pay the good Major a visit. Until then, he would have to do what he hated most, but sometimes was the most important skill for a good S-2. He would have to wait.

  Dutybound

  The only clue Dekker and his Marines had was the scattered prints made by the Paladin's Cat when it landed west of the compound. Any tracks that might have been made after that had already been swept away by the wind.

  That had been twenty nine hours before. Since then, Dekker's nineteen troop carriers had followed behind the two Bravo One Nine carriers as they scurried across the night desert floor scanning for any sign of the Paladin.

  Dekker stared at the navigation monitor in front him, half his body numb from the gyrations of the carrier careening across the gullies and shallow folds of terrain sprawled across the desert. The suspension squeaked as the carrier traversed the uneven terrain. He had stopped looking through the windshield long before as the lights crawling over the unending terrain had put him into a hypnotic state.

  Sitting in the driver's seat next to him, Lt. Simmons kept the throttle in her left hand pushed forward while her right hand flexed the control grip to keep the carrier on course as they approached an abandoned bivouac tower where they would stop, finally, and rest.

  "Two kilometers," Dekker said. "Maintain this bearing." He eyed Simmons, wondering how she could maintain the concentration necessary to pilot the vehicle over the monotonous terrain for hours on end.

  "We'll hold up there for a bit while you send a squad to pick up the freighter pilot."

  "I'll go, sir."

  "You've been driving all night, Lieutenant. Send a squad. You need some sleep."

  "I'll be fine, sir." She tapped her chest pocket. "The miracle of chemistry."

  "Yeah, that will drop you right on your ass at some point. Soon."

  "PDI isn't far, Colonel. I'll rest up after that."

  "Lieutenant." Dekker turned to face her, waiting for her to give him a quick nod acknowledging him. "Do you ever say 'yes, sir'"?

  She smiled. "Yes sir, it's been known to happen from time to time."

  The glow of the headlights washed up against the hulking shadow of the bivouac tower, it's composite spire piercing the sky. Simmons turned the carrier towards the entrance and yanked back the throttle, bringing the vehicle to a sliding stop. She leaned forward against the console deck and let out a long breath. She sat back and shook her head, kicking her short bonnet of red hair back and forth. Dekker suppressed a smile and shook his head.

  "I hope I'm not around when you find your limits Lieutenant."

  "I didn't get where I am by looking for them, sir."

  "Fair enough."

  Dekker unlatched his door and eased his leg onto the foot step welded to the side. He groaned as his muscles protested with a stabbing ache. He swung out of the vehicle and thumped to the ground, staggering for a moment before regaining his balance. He grimaced and shook his head, then took a deep breath.

  The rest of the battalion carriers rolled in behind them and maneuvered into three company groups of six vehicles each, forming a semi circular formation in front of the tower.

  Dekker stepped around the front of the vehicle as Lt. Simmons dismounted.

  As she turned to head for the second carrier, he said, "Hold on, Lieutenant."

  She turned back around. "Sir?"

  "We need to go over something before you move out."

  "Go ahead, Colonel."

  He placed his hand her shoulder and pulled her aside as he started walking away from the carrier. "Who do you work for, Lieutenant?"

  "I'm attached directly to MEF headquarters."

  Dekker stopped walking and stepped in front of her. She looked up at him, her expression disinterested and receptive at the same time. He didn't see it in her eyes - she was good at hiding a lie.

  "And what are your orders?"

  "To assist you with reconnaissance."

  Her eyes twitched once, then her face lapsed into a practiced expression of boredom.

  "Do you know where the name for my battalion comes from?"

  Simmons knitted her brow. "Actually, no."

  "The commander of the S-2 Special Intelligence and Operations Team should know the background of the officers she's working with."

  Her mouth fell open - just enough to let him see her facade shatter. She pressed her lips back together and looked past him.

  Dekker nodded, allowing just enough of a smile to show his amusement. "Well, one thing your Colonel Harris and I have in common is a healthy dose of uncertainty about all this. But even he doesn't know about the Enforcer. It's something they don't keep records about."

  "Well, so you know something about me," Simmons said. That doesn't mean what you say is true."

  "Very good, Lieutenant. But neither do you know that what I say isn't true. You need to listen to me now."

  "Alright, Colonel. I'm listening."

  "What you need to understand is that while our orders may differ, our mission is the same. We're here to find the Paladin and bring him home."

  "Agreed."

  "What are your orders, Lieutenant?"

  "As I said, to help you with recon." He could still see she wasn't telling him everything, but she didn't work too hard to hide it this time.

  "That's good enough for now, I suppose."

  Dekker resumed his walk, his hands clasped behind his back. "I had to put down one of my Marines after the battle."

  "Sending them below can
't be easy."

  "No. I was down there. I pulled the trigger myself. I killed him."

  She glanced at him, her eyes searching for something in his now. "Why would you put yourself through that?"

  "I need to make sure it still gets to me. There are some things a person shouldn't get used to."

  "Sounds like your punishing yourself, Colonel."

  "Maybe so." He stopped walking and turned to face her, making sure she was paying attention. "Here's the thing. There is a difference between enduring the unthinkable when it results from your own initiative and when it happens as a result of following orders."

  "How is that possible?"

  "When you follow orders, you can assign the consequences of your actions to duty. It's a buffer between the horror of a man's actions and his own soul."

  "Not sure I see it that way, Colonel. It's the moral duty of any officer to take responsibility for their actions."

  "You're young. You'll get over that." Her expression glazed over.

  "But here's what you need to understand right now. I'm tired of this war. I'm tired of killing Marines. The Paladin is my oldest friend and the only man I've ever trusted."

  "And now you're hunting him down."

  "That's right. And if bringing him home will end this war, then that's what I will do. If this freighter pilot helps me accomplish that mission, then I will do whatever it takes to find out what he knows."

  "As will I, sir."

  "No, you won't. You think you will, but you won't. I have no doubt about your commitment to your mission and your orders, but you have to understand. I am still a man who can do the unthinkable in the name of following orders. The fact that it gets to me - the fact that I'm still not used to it - none of that will stop me. That's what I learned to do as the Enforcer"