The Ghost Brigades omw-2

by John Scalzi

  The second rail-gun projectile entered aft of the first, following a parallel directory, but failed to fragment; its exit wound was only marginally larger than its entrance wound. It made up for this failure by breaching one of the engines of the Rraey craft. The cruiser's automatic damage controls slammed down bulkheads, isolating the damaged engine, and took the other two engines offline to avoid a cascading failure. The Rraey ship was switched to emergency power, which offered it only a minimum of offensive and defensive options, none of which would be at all effective against the Kite.

  The Kite, its own power partially drained (but recharging) through the use of the rail guns, sealed the deal by launching five conventional tactical nuclear missiles at the Rraey cruiser. It would take them more than a minute to reach the cruiser, but the Kite now had the luxury of time. The cruiser was the only Rraey ship in the area. A small flash issued forth from the Rraey ship: The doomed cruiser was launching a Skip drone, designed to quickly get to Skip distance and let the rest of the Rraey military know what happened to it. The Kite launched a sixth and final missile toward the drone, which would be overtaken and destroyed less than ten thousand klicks from Skip distance. By the time the Rraey found out about their cruiser, the Kite would be light-years away.

  Presently the Rraey cruiser was an expanding debris field, and Lieutenant Sagan and her 2nd Platoon received their clearance for their part of the mission.

  Jared tried to calm the first-mission nerves, and the mild fear brought by the choppiness of the troop transport's descent into the Gettysburg atmosphere, by trying to close out distractions and focus his energies. Daniel Harvey, sitting next to him, was making that difficult.

  ::Goddamn wildcat colonists,:: Harvey said, as the troop transport plunged through the atmosphere. "They go off and build illegal colonies and then come crying to us when some other fucking species is crawling up their holes.::

  "Relax, Harvey,:: said Alex Roentgen. "You're going to give yourself a migraine.::

  ::What I want to know is how these fuckers even manage to get to these places,:: Harvey said. ::The Colonial Union doesn't bring 'em out here. And you can't go anywhere without CU say-so.::

  "Sure you can,:: Roentgen said. "The CU doesn't control all interstellar travel, just the travel that humans do.::

  ::These colonists are human, Einstein,:: Harvey said.

  ::Hey,:: said Julie Einstein. ::Leave me out of this.::

  "It's just an expression, Julie,:: Harvey said.

  ::The colonists are human, but the people who are transporting them aren't, you idiot,:: Roentgen said. "Wildcat colonists buy transport from aliens the CU trades with, and the aliens take them where they want to go.::

  ::That's stupid,:: Harvey said, and looked around the platoon for agreement. Most of the platoon were either resting with their eyes closed or studiously avoiding the discussion; Harvey had a reputation as an argumentative blowhard. ::The CU could stop that if they wanted to. Tell the aliens to stop picking up wildcat passengers. That would save us from having to risk getting our asses shot off.::

  From the forward seat, Jane Sagan turned her head toward Harvey. "The CU doesn't want to stop wildcat colonists,:: she said, in a bored tone.

  "Why the hell not?:: Harvey asked.

  "They're troublemakers,:: Sagan said. "The sort of person who will defy the CU and start a wildcat colony is the sort of person who could cause trouble at home if he wasn't allowed to go. The CU figures it's not worth the trouble. So they let them go, and look the other way. Then they're on their own.::

  ::Until they get in trouble,:: Harvey sneered.

  ::Usually even then,:: Sagan said. ::Wildcatters know what they're getting into.::

  ::Then what are we doing here?:: Roentgen said. ::Not to take Harvey's side, but these are wildcat colonists.::

  "Orders,:: Sagan said, and closed her eyes, ending the discussion. Harvey snorted and was about to reply when the turbulence suddenly became especially bad.

  "Looks like the Rraey on the ground just figured out we're up here,:: Chad Assisi said from the pilot's seat. "We've got three more missiles on their way. Hang on, I'm going to try to burn them before they get too close.:: Several seconds later came a low, solid hum; the transport's defensive maser fired up to deal with the missiles.

  ::Why don't we just plaster these guys from orbit?:: Harvey said. "We've done that before.::

  ::There are humans down there, aren't there?:: Jared said, venturing a comment. "I'd guess we'd want to avoid using tactics that would injure or kill them.::

  Harvey gave Jared the briefest of glances and then changed the subject.

  Jared glanced over to Sarah Pauling, who gave him a shrug. In the week they had been attached to the 2nd Platoon, the best adjective to describe relations was frosty. Other members of the platoon were diffidently polite when forced to be but otherwise ignored the two of them whenever possible. Jane Sagan, the platoon's superior officer, let them know briefly that this was par for the course for new recruits until their first combat mission. ::Just deal with it,:: she said, and returned to work of her own.

  It made both Jared and Pauling uneasy. Being casually ignored was one thing, but the two of them were also denied full integration with the platoon. They were lightly connected and shared a common band for discussion and sharing information concerning the upcoming mission, but the intimate sharing offered by their training squad was not in evidence here. Jared looked back at Harvey and not for the first time wondered if integration was simply a training tool. If it was, it seemed cruel to offer it to people only to take it away later. But he'd seen evidence of integration among his platoon mates: the subtle movements and actions that suggested an unspoken common dialogue and a sensory awareness beyond one's own senses. Jared and Pauling yearned for it but also knew the lack of it was a test to see how they would respond.

  To combat the lack of integration with their platoon, Jared and Pauling's integration was defensively intimate; they spent so much time in each other's heads that by the end of the week, despite their affection together, they were very nearly sick of each other. There was, they discovered, such a thing as too much integration. The two of them diluted their sharing slightly by inviting Steven Seaborg to integrate with them informally. Seaborg, who had been receiving the same cold shoulder from the 1st Platoon but who had no training mates in the platoon to keep him company, was almost pathetically grateful for the offer.

  Jared glanced down at Jane Sagan and wondered if the platoon leader would tolerate having him and Sarah unintegrated during the mission; it seemed dangerous. For him and Pauling, at the very least.

  As if responding to his thoughts, Sagan glanced up at him and then spoke. ::Assignments,:: she said, and sent a map of the tiny Gettysburg colony to the platoon with their assignments overlaid. ::Remember this is a sweep and clean. There's been no Skip drone activity, so either they're all dead or they're all herded somewhere where they can't get a message out. The idea is to clean out the Rraey with a minimum of structural damage to the colony. That's minimal, Harvey,:: staring pointedly at the soldier, who squirmed uncomfortably. ::I don't mind blowing things up when necessary but anything we destroy is something these settlers have less of.::

  ::What?:: Roentgen said. ::Are you seriously suggesting we're going to let these people stay? If they're still alive?::

  ::They're wildcatters,:: Sagan said. ::We can't force them to act intelligently.::

  ::Well, we could force them,:: Harvey said.

  ::We won't force them,:: Sagan said. ::We have new people to take under our wings. Roentgen, you're responsible for Pauling. I'll take Dirac. The rest of you, two by two to your assignments. We land here::—a small landing zone illuminated—::and I'll let you use your own creativity to get to where you need to be. Remember to note your surroundings and the enemy; you're looking for all of us.::

  ::Or at least some of us,:: Pauling said privately to Jared. Then the both of them felt the sensuous rush of integration, the hyper-awaren
ess of having so many points of view overlaid on one's own. Jared struggled to control a gasp.

  ::Don't cream yourself,:: Harvey said, and there were a few pings of amusement in the platoon. Jared ignored this and drank in the emotional and informational gestalt offered by his platoon mates: the confidence in their abilities to confront the Rraey; a substrata of early planning for their paths to their mission destinations; a tense and subtle anticipatory excitement that seemed to have little to do with the combat to come; and shared communal feeling that taking care to keep structures intact was pointless, since the colonists were almost certainly dead already.

  ::Behind you,:: Jared heard Sarah Pauling say, and he and Jane Sagan turned and fired even as they received the image and data, from Pauling's distant point of view, of three Rraey soldiers moving silently but not invisibly around a small general-purpose building to ambush the pair. The trio stepped out into a hail of bullets from Jared and Sagan; one dropped dead while the other two broke and ran in separate directions.

  Jared and Sagan quickly polled the viewpoints of the other members of the platoon to see who might pick up one or both of the fleeing soldiers. Everyone else was engaged, including Pauling, who had returned to her primary task of flushing out a Rraey sniper on the edge of the Gettysburg settlement. Sagan audibly sighed.

  ::Get that one,:: she said, taking off after the second. ::Try not to get killed.::

  Jared followed the Rraey soldier, who used its powerful, bird-like legs to build a considerable lead on him. As Jared raced to catch up, the Rraey spun and shot wildly at him with a one-handed grip on its weapon; the kick knocked the gun up and out of the Rraey's hand. The bullets spat up dirt directly in front of Jared, who veered for cover as the weapon clattered to the ground. The Rraey ran on without retrieving its weapon and disappeared into the colony's motor pool garage.

  ::I could use some help,:: Jared said, at the bay of the garage.

  ::Join the club,:: Harvey said, from somewhere. ::These fuckers outnumber us at least two to one.::

  Jared entered the garage through the bay. The quick glance showed that the only other way out was a door on the same wall as the bay and one of a series of windows designed to ventilate the garage. The windows were both high and small; it seemed unlikely the Rraey had gone through those. It was still somewhere inside the garage. Jared moved to one side and started a methodical search of the shop.

  A knife shot out from a tarp on a low shelf and slashed Jared in his calf. The nanobotic fabric of Jared's military unitard stiffened where the knife blade made contact. Jared didn't receive a scratch. But his own shocked movement tripped him up; he went sprawling on the floor, ankle twisted, his Empee clattering out of his hand. The Rraey scrambled out of its hiding place before Jared could get to it, clambered over Jared and pushed the Empee with the fist that still held the knife. The Empee danced out of reach and the Rraey stabbed Jared's face, cutting him savagely in the cheek and drawing SmartBlood. Jared yelled; the Rraey scrambled off him and toward the Empee.

  When Jared spun around the Rraey had the Empee trained on him, its elongated fingers awkwardly but solidly on the stock and trigger. Jared froze. The Rraey squawked something and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing. Jared remembered that the Empee was trained to his BrainPal; it wouldn't fire for a nonhuman. He cracked a smile in relief; the Rraey squawked again and jammed the Empee hard into Jared's face, tearing into the cheek it had already slashed. Jared screamed and scrambled back in pain. The Rraey threw the Empee onto a high shelf, out of the reach of both of them. It reached onto a counter to grab a tire rod and advanced on Jared, swinging viciously.

  Jared blocked the swing with his arm; his unitard stiffened again but the hit made his arm ache in pain. On the next swing he reached to grab the rod but misjudged the speed of the approach; the rod came down hard on his fingers, breaking bones in the ring and middle fingers of his right hand and driving down his arm. The Rraey moved the iron sideways and clocked Jared in the head with it; he went down to his knees, dazed, retwisting the ankle he'd fallen on earlier. Jared groggily went for his combat knife with his left hand; the Rraey kicked the hand, hard, sending the knife spinning out of his grip. A second rapid kick tapped Jared on the chin, driving his teeth into his tongue, causing SmartBlood to spurt into his mouth and over his teeth. The Rraey pushed him over, pulled out its knife, and bent down to cut Jared's throat. Jared's mind suddenly ricocheted back to a training session with Sarah Pauling, when she straddled him with her knife on his throat and told him he lacked focus.

  He focused now.

  Jared sucked in suddenly and spat a gobbet of SmartBlood at the Rraey's face and eye band. The creature recoiled, revulsed, giving Jared the time he needed to instruct his BrainPal to do with the SmartBlood on the Rraey's face what it did when it was ingested by the bloodsucking bug on Phoenix: combust.

  The Rraey screamed as the SmartBlood began to burn into its face and eye band, dropping its knife as it clawed at its face. Jared grabbed the knife and drove it into the side of the Rraey's head. The Rraey issued an abrupt, surprised cluck and then went boneless, slumping backwards on the floor. Jared followed its example, lying silently, doing nothing but resting his eyes and becoming more and more aware of the heavy, acrid smell of smoldering Rraey.

  ::Get up,:: someone said to him some time later, and prodded him with a boot toe. Jared winced and looked up. It was Sagan. ::Come on, Dirac. We got them all. You can come out now.::

  ::I hurt,:: Jared said.

  ::Hell, Dirac,:: Sagan said. ::I hurt just looking at you.:: She motioned over to the Rraey. "Next time, just shoot the damn thing.::

  ::I'll keep that in mind,:: Jared said.

  ::Speaking of which,:: Sagan said, ::where's your Empee?::

  Jared looked up at the high shelf the Rraey had flung it onto. ::I think I need a ladder,:: Jared said.

  ::You need stitches,:: Sagan said. ::Your cheek is about to come off.::

  ::Lieutenant,:: Julie Einstein said. "You're going to want to come over here. We found the settlers.::

  ::Any of them alive?:: Sagan said.

  ::God, no,:: Einstein said, and through the integration both Sagan and Jared felt her shudder.

  ::Where are you?:: Sagan asked.

  ::Um,:: Einstein said. ::Maybe you should come and see.::

  A minute later Sagan and Jared were at the colony slaughterhouse.

  ::Fucking Rraey,:: Sagan said as they walked up. She turned to Einstein, who was waiting outside for her. ::They're in here?::

  ::They're here,:: Einstein said. ::In the cold room in the back.::

  ::All of them?:: Sagan asked.

  ::I think so. It's hard to tell,:: Einstein said. ::They're mostly in parts.::

  The cold room was crammed with meat.

  Special Forces soldiers gaped up at the skinned torsos on hooks. Barrels below the hooks were filled with offal. Limbs in various states of processing lay stacked on tables. On a separate table lay a collection of heads, skulls sawed open to extract the brains. Discarded heads rested in another barrel next to the table.

  A small pile of unprocessed bodies was heaped under a tarp. Jared went to uncover it. Children lay underneath.

  ::Christ,:: Sagan said. She turned to Einstein. ::Get someone over to the colony administration offices,:: she said. ::Pull up any medical and genetic records you can find, and pictures of the colonists. We're going to need them to identify people. Then get a couple of people to dig through trash cans.::

  ::What are we looking for?:: Einstein asked.

  :: Scraps,:: Sagan said. ::Whoever the Rraey already ate.::

  Jared heard Sagan give her orders as a buzz in his head. He crouched and stared, transfixed, at the pile of small bodies. At the top lay the body of a small girl, elfin features silent, relaxed and beautiful. He reached over and gently touched the girl's cheek. It was ice-cold.

  Unaccountably Jared felt a hard stab of grief. He turned away with a retching sob.

  Daniel
Harvey, who had found the cold room with Einstein, stood over Jared. ::First time,:: he said.

  Jared looked up. ::What?:: he said.

  Harvey motioned to the bodies with his head. -.This is the first time you've seen children. Am I right?::

  ::Yes,:: Jared said.

  ::This is how it happens with us,:: Harvey said. ::The first time we see colonists, they're dead. The first time we see children, they're dead. The first time we see an intelligent creature who isn't human, it's dead or trying to kill us, so we have to kill it. Then it's dead. It took me months before I saw a live colonist. I've never seen a live child.::

  Jared turned back to the pile. ::How old is this one?:: he asked.

  ::Shit, I don't know,:: Harvey said, but looked anyway. ::I'd guess three or four years old. Five, tops. And you know what's funny? She was older than both of us put together. She was older than both of us put together twice. It's a fucked-up universe, my friend.::

  Harvey wandered away. Jared stared at the little girl for another minute, then covered her and the pile with the tarp. He went looking for Sagan, who he found outside the colony's administration building.

  ::Dirac,:: Sagan said as he approached. ::What do you think of your first mission?::

  ::I think it's pretty awful,:: Jared said.

  ::That it is,:: Sagan said. "Do you know why we're here? Why we're out here at a wildcat settlement?" she asked him.

  It took Jared a second to realize she had spoken the words out loud. "No," he said, responding in kind.

  "Because the leader of this settlement is the son of the Secretary of State for the Colonial Union," Sagan said. "The dumb bastard wanted to prove to his mother that the Colonial Union regulations against wildcat settlements were an affront to civil rights."

  "Are they?" Jared asked.

  Sagan looked over at Jared. "Why do you ask?"

  "I'm just curious," Jared said.

  "Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't," Sagan said. "But either way, the last place to prove that point would have been this planet. It's been claimed by the Rraey for years, even if they didn't have a settlement on it. I guess the asshole thought that because the CU beat the Rraey in the last war maybe they'd look the other way for fear of retaliation. Then ten days ago the spy satellite we put in over the planet got shot out of the sky by that cruiser we took out. It got a picture of the cruiser first. And here we are."