by Peter Telep
Shane stepped carefully to Nathan. Once at his side, she kept quiet, respecting his thoughts. She could only see his profile, but it was enough to reveal that he shed no tears. He might be numb, beyond crying.
Stealing a glimpse at the body, she had to immediately shut her eyes and fight off a chill. The darkness took her to another time, a time when Kim and Lauren had been crying. Uncle Joe and Aunt Rita, Marine friends of her parents who were not true relatives, had been bawling even more fiercely than her sisters. There had been the blinding flash of rotating lights, the shrill wail of sirens, and the popping of gunfire in the distance. The pungent scent of faraway fires had been carried on the night wind. Mommy and Daddy had been zipped into black bags. After blinking several times, she put her hand on Nathan's shoulder. "Nathan, you're out of control. It's more than just Pags...."
Slowly, maybe embarrassed, he faced her and slipped the alien card from her hand. He studied it.
Shane took in a long breath before speaking. "We're at war. It killed Pags because it had to. I hate what happened, you hate what happened. But maybe if we show it what it means to be human... who knows... one day the killing might stop. It can communicate. We've already proven that."
"Its kind communicates with weapons. With death," Nathan retorted. He handed her the card. "You think it cared about those colonists on Vesta, or those on the Tellus ship?"
"I..."
Nathan cocked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the ship. "It represents them. And their actions tell me all I need to know."
They both looked back at the sound of the air lock door lowering to the ground. Hawkes, Low, Damphousse, and Wang struggled forward out of the lock, and, at first, it was hard to see what they were dragging.
Then Shane realized it was the alien. She jogged to them, calling out, "What happened?"
Hawkes dropped the arm he was holding. "It killed itself."
"How?" Nathan asked, slowing to a stop before the corpse.
"I gave it a drink. That green foam there spewed from its grill thing. Then it keeled over."
She huffed. "I don't know, I just... I can't believe it would be that afraid of us." Damphousse stared grimly at the creature.
Nathan went to the recruit and stuck his face in hers. "We're the enemy."
Damphousse shoved Nathan away. "Don't be so glad it's dead. We could've learned something."
Shane wasn't the only one who stared accusingly at Nathan; the others had him under their spotlights.
"Look, I'm just trying to make you people understand what we're dealing with. Now, c'mon."
Shane folded her arms over her chest and watched the five drag the pilot next to Pags's body. Alien and human lay side by side, a haunting prophecy framed in rust-colored sand.
"This is the first time I've ever seen a dead body," Low admitted.
"Stick around," Hawkes told her. "It won't be the last."
Once again, the wondrously surreal landscape was marred by the terrifying reality of death. Shane would be hard-pressed to remember the beauty of Mars. She watched as Nathan returned the alien's card to its bicep pocket, then he straightened and focused on Pags. Shane did likewise.
Wasn't it just yesterday that she was listening to the funny, obsessive Marine?
Hey, I know it's only the first day, but any guess as to when we get our planes?
Sir, maybe Coop would do better in a real plane, sir. I know I would.
See ... if I were runnin' the Marine Corps, I'd give recruits planes on the first day.
Sir, I want my plane, sir.
sixteen
Nathan stared at the United States flag as two members of the Marine Corps Honor Guard used white-gloved hands to fold it into a triangle before Pags's casket. One of the guardsmen presented Pags's teary-eyed mother with the flag. For a moment it appeared she didn't want the flag, but then she took and held it tightly against her chest. Pags's father wore a callous face, but his anguish was visible in the hand he repeatedly balled into a fist. As Pags's mother collapsed to the folding chair behind her, Pags's father sat, slid an arm around his wife, and let her bury her face in his chest.
Shane, Low, Stone, Bartley, and Carter stood at parade rest to Nathan's right. Yes, their dress blues itched, but Nathan knew that wasn't the only reason they shifted uncomfortably.
A zephyr fluttered through Nathan's hair, and he looked up into it, into a sky he had forgotten was that blue. He was on Earth at last, no longer homesick but surely not at peace. The snare drummer started a roll. That was Nathan's cue to hold a salute. The bugler began to play taps. Nathan's legs stiffened, then his back, arms, and chest. His hand shook and he tried to calm it. Tried.
Pags's casket was lowered into the grave. Hawkes, Damphousse, and Wang stood opposite Nathan. He eyed the grave, then studied Hawkes. The tank appeared especially affected, blinking hard, lower lip quivering as he held a crisp salute. Nathan wondered if the tank knew how to cry, and guessed that the whole ceremony was probably hard for Hawkes to comprehend. Tanks didn't lose loved ones. Then again, they did lose friends.
When Nathan had been ten his grandmother had died. He'd been too scared to go to the wake or funeral. He and his brothers had stayed home. Pags's funeral was the first one Nathan had ever been to. He would have to get used them.
The bugler held his last note, then let it fade into the rustling of nearby trees. The drummer lifted his sticks from his drum.
A wing of five SA-29 Condors boomed overhead, then one plane dropped back and rolled away: the missing-man formation. The jets disappeared, leaving ivory vapor trails in their wake.
It was over. Nathan dropped his salute. People collected their belongings. Family members thanked those gathered for coming.
Nathan felt the need to go to Pags's parents, to talk to them, to tell them their son had not died in vain. He'd read the official report, an objective collected account of what had happened on Mars, a report devoid of Pags's humor and bravery. It made Pags seem like he'd been a piece of machinery that had just happened to be in the way. "... and Pagodin, Michael E. was KIA by enemy sniper fire as he stood near the craft..." The Marine Corps certainly had a way of processing words.
Nathan took a step toward Pags's folks, then, seeing how distraught Pags's mother was, he hesitated.
A hand slid onto his shoulder. It was Shane. She looked at Pags's parents. "When no one knows what to say, they just say 'it happens' or 'it was fate' or 'it was his time to go'."
"Or 'I'm sorry,"' Nathan added, "which doesn't mean jack. Everyone covers it up with pretty words. The guy's dead, wiped off the planet forever. Nothing pretty about that."
Damphousse approached. "Some of us are going for lunch, then over to Asteroids. You guys want to—"
"Not me." He glanced sidelong to Shane. "You go."
She took his arm. "No one should be alone now."
"I have something I have to do," he told her.
She frowned. "Like what?"
He rolled his eyes.
"Leave him be," Damphousse said, taking Shane's arm and pulling her away from him. "Let's go."
Nathan watched them walk away, then, with his head bowed, dragged himself away from the graveyard.
With nothing in particular to do, but wanting to do it alone, he crossed the street, opting to hike the kilometer back to the base instead of riding in the jeep.
He sensed the approach of someone from behind, then a shadow rose next to his. With mild shock he glimpsed a sweaty Sergeant Bougus. "West, I wanna talk to you."
"Sir, yes, sir."
"I read your version of the mission report. Why does it lack your single-handed and single-minded charge after the alien?"
"Sir, this on the record, sir?"
"Yes it is."
"Sir, I was instructed to write a summary, sir. Which I did. That detail—"
"—was included in every other recruit's report. Lying won't get you far in the Corps."
Nathan picked up his pace, challenging Bougus to
do the same. The older man's collar was already dark and soaked. "Sir, I did not lie, sir."
"You just withheld the truth, that it? You know what I think of that thumb-sucker shit? I think it stinks. Now you tell me what happened."
"Sir, you already know what happened," Nathan said, fingering sweat from his temples and sideburns.
"I want to hear it from you."
"All right. I went after the thing. I did it on my own. I didn't think there was time to wait for the others."
"Bullshit."
Nathan stopped. "Sir, you wanted to hear what happened and I'm telling you, sir."
"You want me to tell you what happened?"
He shrugged. "I thought you didn't know..."
Bougus did his in-your-face routine, which was not as disturbing as the first time he had done it to Nathan, but it was immediately effective in raising Nathan's pulse. The sergeant's eyes were so close that the universe was reduced to a starless, coal-black night. "I'll tell you what happened. You reached down inside yourself and pulled out the demon. You went after that alien with what I call an unbridled bloodlust. That, sir, when in control, is the essence of a Marine's courage. But you had no control. You let the demon beat you. You're standing here 'cause you just got lucky."
The sergeant stood there breathing in Nathan's face. Nathan didn't know if he should look away, say something, resume his walk, or do nothing.
Bougus stepped back and ran a finger between his neck and collar, wincing over the shirt's too-small neck. "They're gonna ask you about the demon. What are you gonna tell them?"
"Sir?"
"The shrinks, boy! They ain't gonna put you in AFT if they suspect you got a loose marble!"
"Sir, what am I supposed to tell them, sir?"
"Lie."
"Sir? You said lying wouldn't get me far in the Corps."
"That's right, I did. But in this case it'll get you into Accelerated Flight Training. See, West, in this case the truth is relative."
"Sir, I'm not sure I follow, sir."
"You don't have to. Be assured of this: they will ask you what happened on Mars. They will ask you about being bumped off the Tellus Mission. They will ask you about Miss Kylen Celina."
Nathan's eyes grew wide.
"Uh-huh. You had better secure that demon. You unleash him in battle. Not before. Understand?"
He gave a solemn nod. "But sir, I won't lie. I wanted that thing dead. I wasn't thinking about working together. I just wanted it. So I went. If the shrinks can't understand that, if they can't understand that a fellow Marine—a friend—was gutted in front of me and I wanted to see a little justice served, then maybe I shouldn't be flying. Because you're right. It's the demon that gives you the balls to go out there alone. I guess somehow I gotta get control of mine." He puffed his cheeks and blew out air. "When is this psych evaluation supposed to happen?"
"It already has."
seventeen
Hawkes's SA-22 stealth fighter with retractable wing design plunged into the boiling-over atmosphere of the planet. His insertion angle had been good, the friction minimal. The heat shield shut down automatically. Alien jet streams buffeted the ship, and he suddenly found himself fighting relentlessly with the stick as a dense whiteness hugged the canopy. Columns of data scrolled down his HUD but he ignored them. He alternated his gaze between the digital gyrostabilizer screen and the LIDAR image.
"He calls this mild chop?" West asked, his tone conveying that he wholeheartedly disagreed with Sergeant Bougus's definition.
"Guess so," Hawkes replied, hearing the strain in his own voice. "Hate to fly in what he calls the 'spicy stuff.'"
"Contacts," West shouted. "One, two, three, four, five."
"Uh, make that six," Wang reported nervously.
The LIDAR beeped and presented the three-dimensional bad news. The bogeys bore an uncanny resemblance to the alien craft they had discovered on Mars. "Confirm Red Leader. A-O-A twenty-nine degrees—wait! Dispersing!"
As his fighter descended farther, breaking into the troposphere, the dense clouds dissolved into a light-blue sky that could be mistaken for Earth's. An ocean of black velvet lay below, whitecaps speckling it like stars. Sunlight fired a dazzle off the nose of his ship, blinding him momentarily. When he looked again, an immense fighter passed over him; its hull fully eclipsed the sun and its white-hot triple thrusters dropped within ten or fifteen meters from his about-to-melt-any-second canopy.
"Dammit, West! I got one that wants to land on me!"
"Get out of his wash," Shane advised.
Yet even as she finished her order, the nose of Hawkes's fighter pitched up, sending him into an inverted flat spin. Blue, black, and dots of white wiped by, and there wasn't a single alarm in his cockpit that wasn't flashing or buzzing. Although he was out of control, somehow one of his target locks had found a bogey. Still a falling top, his G-suit pressurizing, bile threatening to escape from the back of his throat, Hawkes squeezed the trigger of his laser cannon. Above the screaming protest of his thrusters he heard the explosion overhead.
But there was little time to celebrate. His spin felt like it was increasing at a rate of ten to the millionth power. He reached for the autogyro toggle, battling against the centrifugal force that, like a 250-kilogram wrestler, wanted him pinned to his flight seat. A quarter-meter out of reach... a tenth...
"Drop your gear, Hawkes!" Shane cried. "You'll slow up!"
"Reds three, four, and five. Ready harpoons," West ordered.
Hawkes's hand slapped against his chest. He couldn't save himself. In a second he knew he'd black out. At least he wouldn't feel his impact with the ocean.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
"I got the remote on his thrusters," Wang said. "Powering down."
He had a vague idea of what they were attempting, but doubted it would work. As the thrusters behind him died, he was jerked forward, back, to the right, felt the jet roll and then all of his weight pressed on his straps. He saw the ocean directly below as though he were looking down from a chopper.
Three fighters in triangular' formation hovered above him. Tow lines snaked to his ship from each of the planes, two of the taut cables magnetically locked to his wings, one bound to the fuselage. They had plucked him from the sky, flipped him right side up, and now, once he refired his thrusters, could let him go on his merry way. Amazing. Hawkes chucked under his breath.
"All right!" Wang cheered. "Seals are good. We just saved the Corps a whole lot of money."
"Oh, don't worry about me," Hawkes bantered. "Just save the expensive plane."
"You're a valuable asset, too," Shane assured him. "How are you feeling?"
"Nauseous, disoriented... just like any other day," he told her.
Someone clapped loudly outside his fighter. The vista of the ocean froze then faded into the simulator room.
"Aw, c'mon, Sarge. We still gotta finish off those contacts," West complained.
"Fall in, people," Bougus said.
Hawkes crawled out of his cockpit, wondering just how pale his complexion really was. He lined up with rest of Marines.
"This will be your final day of Accelerated Flight Training," Bougus said, looking up from his clipboard. "Thus far we're nine for nine, with Mr. Cooper Hawkes at the top of this class. He can shoot. He just can't drive."
They laughed and clapped for him. He couldn't believe it. He was a tank getting applause. His cheeks warming, Hawkes held formation but searched for a place to hide.
"You ain't a team leader yet, Hawkes," Bougus reminded. "I don't believe I'm saying this, but one day your sorry butt may be there."
"Sir, if I may, sir. You told us we were getting at least ten days of APT. Not seven," Wang said.
Bougus grinned crookedly. "Wartime tends to change schedules. We got three new squads waiting for AFT. And your graduation ceremony has been postponed. The rest of today you'll spend on docking and launching procedures. Can't shoot anything unless you can get off the boat."
Hawk
es slumped. He had hoped they were going to finish their atmospheric dogfight. Instead they were being forced to practice parallel parking.
The drudge work ended at 1700. Hawkes returned to the barracks, showered, shaved, then joined Stone, who was also on his way to the mess hall.
"You hear?" Stone asked excitedly.
"What?"
"Bougus wants us at the hangar at 1830."
Hawkes furrowed his brow. "For what?"
They stepped into the mess hall and got on line. Stone grabbed a tray. "For what? We must've received our orders. Maybe we're getting our planes!"
"Don't bet on it," Hawkes said, despite the fact that a chill was winding up his spine.
"Oh, why you got to sour this? They spent a lot of money on us. I'm telling you, we're going to be flying soon."
With their trays overloaded with fish sticks, French fries, com bread, and Vestan mint leaf pudding, they sat down at a long table already occupied by West, Shane, Damphousse, and Wang.
"So, you guys hear?" Damphousse asked.
"We sure did," Stone answered.
Shane put her fork down. "We shouldn't get our hopes up."
Hawkes nodded emphatically. "They'll put us on a coaster first, giving us planes then taking them away, then, finally, we might get 'em."
"The Corps shorted us on our training, that's for sure," Wang said.
"Let's forget about it until we get there," West suggested.
They ate their meals in silence. Then lives revolved around the Corps and if they weren't talking about it, well, it seemed they had nothing else to talk about, which—Hawkes reminded himself—was not true. The Corps simply had a way of making one forget about everything else. And with the war on all other topics seemed pale in comparison.
