by John Scalzi
"It's a mess," Jared said.
Sagan laughed mirthlessly. "Now I've got to go back into that fucking cold room and test corpses until I find the secretary's son," she said. "Then I'll have the pleasure of telling her that the Rraey chopped up her son and his family for food."
"His family?" Jared asked.
"Wife," Sagan said, "and a daughter. Four years old."
Jared shuddered violently, thinking of the girl on the pile. Sagan watched him intently. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Jared said. "It just seems a waste."
"The wife and kid are a waste," Sagan said. "The dumb bastard who brought them here got what he deserved."
Jared shuddered again. "If you say so," he said.
"I do say so," Sagan said. "Now, come on. Time to identify the colonists, or what's left of them."
::Well,:: Sarah Pauling said to Jared, as he came out of the Kite's infirmary. ::You sure don't do things the easy way.:: She reached out to his cheek, to the welt that remained there despite the nano-stitching. ::You can still see where you got cut.::
::It doesn't hurt,:: Jared said. ::Which is more than I can say about my ankle and my hand. The ankle wasn't broken, but the fingers will take a couple of days to fully heal.::
::Better that than being dead,:: Pauling said.
::This is true,:: Jared admitted.
::And you taught everybody a new trick,:: Pauling said. -Things you didn't know you could do with SmartBlood. They're calling you Red-Hot Jared now.::
"Everybody knows you can get SmartBlood to heat up,:: Jared said. ::I saw people using it to fry up bugs on Phoenix all the time.::
::Yes, everyone uses it to smoke the little bugs,:: Pauling said, ::But it takes a certain kind of mind to think of using it to smoke the big bugs.::
::I wasn't really thinking about it,:: Jared said. ::I just didn't want to die.::
::Funny how that will make a person creative,:: Pauling said.
"Funny how it makes you focus,:: Jared said. ::I remembered you telling me I needed to work on that. I think you may have saved my life.::
"Good,:: Pauling said. "Try to return the favor sometime.::
Jared stopped walking for a moment. "What?:: Pauling asked.
::Do you feel that?:: Jared asked.
::Feel what?:: Pauling asked.
::I'm feeling like I really want to have sex,:: Jared said.
"Well, Jared,:: Pauling said. "You stopping abruptly in a hallway is not usually how I know you really want to have sex.::
::Pauling, Dirac,:: Alex Roentgen said. ::Rec room. Now. Time for a little after-battle celebration.::
::Oooh,:: Pauling said. ::A celebration. Maybe there will be cake and ice cream.::
There was no cake or ice cream. There was an orgy. All the members of the 2nd Platoon were there, save one, in various stages of undress. Couples and trios lay on couches and cushions, kissing and pressing into each other.
::This is an after-battle celebration?:: Pauling asked.
::The after-battle celebration,:: Alex Roentgen said. ::Every battle we do this.::
"Why?:: Jared asked.
Alex Roentgen stared at Jared, mildly incredulous. -You actually need a reason to have an orgy?:: Jared began to respond, but Roentgen held up his hand. ::One, because we've been through the valley of the shadow of death and come through the other side. And there's no better way to feel alive than this. And after the shit we've seen today, we need to get our minds off it right quick. Two, because as great as sex is, it's even better when everyone you're integrated with is doing it at the same time.::
::So this means you're not going to pull the plug on our integration?:: Pauling asked. She said it teasingly, but Jared sensed the smallest thread of anxiety in the question.
::No,:: Roentgen said, gently. -.You're one of us now. And it's not just sex. It's a deeper expression of communion and trust. Another level of integration.::
::That sounds suspiciously like bullshit to me,:: Pauling said, smiling.
Roentgen sent a ping of high amusement. ::Well, you know. I won't deny that we're in it for the sex too. But you'll see.:: He held out a hand to Pauling. ::Shall we?::
Pauling looked over at Jared, winked, and took Roentgen's hand. ::By all means,:: she said. Jared watched them walk off, and then felt a poke on his shoulder. He turned. Julie Einstein, nude and perky, stood there.
"I've come to test the theory that you are red-hot, Jared,:: she said.
Some indefinite time later Pauling found her way to Jared and lay next to him.
::This has been an interesting evening,:: she said.
::That's one way to put it,:: Jared said. Roentgen's comment that sex was different when everyone with whom you're integrated is involved turned out to be a rather dramatic understatement. Everyone but one, Jared corrected. ::I wonder why Sagan wasn't here,:: Jared said.
::Alex said she used to participate but now she doesn't,:: Pauling said. ::She stopped after a battle where she nearly died. That was a couple of years ago. Alex said participation is strictly optional; no one gives her grief for it.::
At the name "Alex," Jared felt a sharp pang; he'd glimpsed Roentgen and Pauling together earlier while Einstein was on him. "That would explain it,:: Jared said, awkwardly.
Pauling sat up on an arm. ::Did you have a good time? With this?:: she asked.
::You know I did,:: Jared said.
::I know,:: Pauling said. ::I could feel you in my head.::
::Yes,:: Jared said.
::And yet, you don't seem entirely happy,:: Pauling said.
Jared shrugged. ::I couldn't tell you why,:: he said.
Pauling reached over, kissed Jared lightly. ::You're cute when you're jealous,:: she said.
::I don't mean to be jealous,:: Jared said.
::No one means to be jealous, I think,:: Pauling said.
::I'm sorry,:: Jared said.
::Don't be,:: Pauling said. "I'm happy we've been integrated. I'm pleased to be a part of this platoon. And this is a lot of fun. But you are special to me, Jared, and you always have been. You are my best beloved.::
"Best beloved,:: Jared agreed. ::Always.::
Pauling smiled widely. "Glad to get that settled,:: she said, and reached down. ::Now,:: she said. ::Time for me to get the benefit of my best beloved privileges.::
SEVEN
"Thirty klicks,:: Jane Sagan said. "Everyone off the bus.::
The soldiers of the 2nd Platoon removed themselves from the troop transport and fell into the night sky over Dirluew, the capital city of the Eneshan nation. Below them, explosions pocked the sky; not the violent, potentially transport-shattering eruptions that would mark anti-craft defenses, but the pretty multicolored flashes that signaled fireworks. It was the final evening of Chafalan, the Eneshan celebration of rebirth and renewal. Eneshans worldwide were out in their streets, partying and carrying on in a manner appropriate for the time of day where they were, most the Eneshan equivalent of slightly drunk and horny.
Dirluew was especially raucous this Chafalan. In addition to the usual festivities the celebration this year had also included the Consecration of the Heir, in which Fhileb Ser, the Eneshan hierarch, officially pronounced her daughter Vyut Ser as the future ruler of Enesha. To commemorate the consecration, Fhileb Ser had provided a sample of the royal jelly she fed to Vyut Ser and allowed a mass-produced synthetic version to be produced, in diluted form, placed in tiny jars and offered as gifts to the citizens of Dirluew for the final night of Chafalan.
In its natural form, and fed to a pre-metamorphic Eneshan, the royal jelly caused profound developmental changes that resulted in clear physical and mental advantages once the Eneshan developed into adult form. In its diluted and synthesized version, the royal jelly gave adult Eneshans a truly excellent hallucinogenic buzz. Most of the citizens of Dirluew had consumed their jelly prior to the city's fireworks display and light show and were now sitting in their private gardens and public parks, clacking their mouthpie
ces together in the Eneshan equivalent of ooooh and aaaaah as the naturally brilliant and explosive nature of the fireworks was pharmaceutically extended across the entire Eneshan sensory spectrum.
Thirty klicks up (and descending rapidly), Jared could not see or hear the dazzled Eneshans, and the fireworks below were brilliant but distant, the sound of their explosions lost in the distance and the thin Eneshan stratosphere. Jared's perception was occupied with other things: the location of his squad mates, the rate of his descent and the maneuvering required to ensure he was both where he needed to be at landing and yet well out of the way when certain events transpired not too far in the future.
Locating his squad mates was the easiest task. Every member of the 2nd Platoon was blanked out visually and through most of the electromagnetic spectrum by their blackbody nanobiotic unitards and equipment covers, save for a small tightbeam transmitter/receiver each platoon member wore. These polled the position of the other platoon members before the jump and continued doing so at microsecond intervals since. Jared knew that Sarah Pauling was forty meters fore and starboard, Daniel Harvey sixty meters below and Jane Sagan two hundred meters above, the last out of their transport. The first time Jared participated in a nighttime high-altitude jump, not long after Gettysburg, he managed to lose the tightbeam signal and landed several klicks away from his squad, disoriented and alone. He received no end of shit for that.
Jared's final destination lay now less than twenty-five klicks below him, highlighted by his BrainPal, which also offered up a descent pathway computed to get him where he needed to be. The pathway was updated on the fly as the BrainPal took into consideration wind gusts and other atmospheric phenomena; it also tracked carefully around three closely grouped virtual columns, superimposed on Jared's vision. These columns stretched down from the heavens to terminate in three areas of a single building: the hierarch's Palace, which served as both the residence of Fhileb Ser and her court, and the official seat of the government.
What these three columns represented became apparent when Jared and the 2nd Platoon had descended to less than four kilometers and three particle beams appeared in the sky, lancing downward from the satellites the Special Forces had positioned in low orbit above Enesha. One beam was dim, one furiously bright and the third was dimmest of all and with a curious flicker. The citizenry of Dirluew cooed over the sight and the resonant thunderclap wall of sound that accompanied their appearance. In their simultaneously heightened and diminished state of awareness, they thought the beams were part of the city's light show. Only the invaders and the actual coordinators of Dirluew's light show initially knew any different.
Particle beam-producing satellites are not something the Enesha planetary defense grid would have failed to notice; noticing enemy weapons is what planetary defense grids are for. In this particular case, however, the satellites were well-disguised as a trio of repair tugs. The tugs had been planted months earlier—not long after the incident at Gettysburg—as part of the routine service fleet for the Colonial Union's diplomatic berths at one of Enesha's three major space stations. They did, in fact, work perfectly fine as rugs. Their rather unusually modified engines were not apparent externally or by internal systems checks, the latter due to clever software modifications that hid the engines' capabilities to all but the most determined of investigators.
The three tugs had been assigned to haul in the Kite after the ship appeared in Eneshan space and asked for permission to repair damage done to its hull and systems after a recent battle with a Rraey cruiser. The Kite had won the exchange but had to retreat before its damage could be totally repaired (the Kite had picked a fight at one of the Rraey's more moderately defended colonies, where the military strength was strong enough to repel a single Special Forces craft but not strong enough to blast it wholly out of the sky). A routine courtesy tour of the Kite for the Eneshan military was offered by its commander but declined as a matter of course by the Eneshan military, who had already confirmed the Kite's story through its informal intelligence channels with the Rraey. The Kite also asked for and received permission for members of its crew to have shore leave at Tresh, a resort that had been set aside for Colonial Union diplomats and staff stationed on Enesha. Tresh lay to the southeast of Dirluew, which was just north of the flight path the troop transport carrying two squads' worth of "vacationing" members of the 2nd Platoon had filed.
As the troop transport passed near Dirluew, it reported an atmospheric disturbance and changed course northward to avoid chop, edging briefly into the no-fly zone over the Dirluew airspace. Eneshan transport command noted the correction but required the transport to return to its previous flight plan as soon as it edged past the turbulence. The transport did, its load two squads lighter, a few minutes later.
It was interesting what you could do, when your enemy was officially your ally. And unaware you knew it was your enemy.
The particle beams seared forth from the tugs assigned to the Kite and struck the Hierarch's Palace. The first, the strongest of the beams by a significant margin, tore through six levels of palace, into the guts of the place, to vaporize the palace's backup generator and, twenty meters below that, the main power line. Severing the main power line switched the palace's electrical systems to the backup, which had been destroyed milliseconds earlier. In the absence of centralized backup power, various local backups sprang to life and locked down the palace through a system of security doors. The designers of the palace's electrical and security systems reasoned that if both the main power and the backup power were taken down, the entire palace itself would probably be under attack. This was correct as far as it went; what the designers did not expect or intend was for the decentralized system of local backups to play an integral part in the attacker's plans.
This beam caused relatively little secondary damage; its energies were tuned specifically to stay contained within its circumference and to bore deep into the Eneshan ground. The resulting hole was more than eighty yards deep before some of the debris thrown up from the beam's work (and some of the debris from the six levels of palace) filled the bottom of the hole to a depth of several meters.
The second beam pierced the palace's administrative wing. Unlike the first beam, this beam was tuned wide and designed to throw off a massive amount of waste heat. The administrative wing of the palace buckled and sweated where the beam struck. Superheated air tore through the offices, blasting wide doors and windows and igniting everything inside with a combustion point below 932 degrees centigrade. More than three dozen Eneshan night-shift government workers, military guards and janitors immolated, broiling instantly within their carapaces. The hierarch's private office and everything in it, directly in the focused center of the beam, turned to ash only fractions of a second before the firestorm the beam's heat and energy created blew those ashes to all corners of the rapidly deconstructing wing.
The second beam was by far the most destructive but the least critical of the three beams. The Special Forces certainly didn't intend or expect to assassinate the hierarch in her private office; she was rarely in it on any evening and would absolutely not have been in it on this night, when she was attending to public functions as part of the Chafalan celebrations. She was on the other side of Dirluew entirely. It would have been a clumsy attempt attest. But the Special Forces wanted it to look like a clumsy attempt on the hierarch's life, so the hierarch—and her immense and formidable personal security detail—would be kept far from the palace while the 2nd Platoon accomplished its actual goal.
The third beam had the lowest power of any of them and flickered as it surgically battered away at the roof of the palace, like a surgeon cauterizing and removing skin one layer at a time. The goal of this beam was not terror or wholesale destruction but to cut a direct pathway to a palace chamber, in which resided the 2nd Platoon's goal, and the lever that, it was hoped, would serve to pry the Eneshans out of their tripartite plan to attack humanity.
::We're going to kidnap what now?::
asked Daniel Harvey.
::We're going to kidnap Vyut Ser,:: Jane Sagan said. ::Heir to the Eneshan throne.::
Daniel Harvey gave a look of sheer incredulousness, and Jared was reminded why Special Forces soldiers, despite their integration, actually bothered to meet physically for briefings: In the end, nothing could really top body language.
Sagan forwarded the intelligence report on the mission and the mission specs, but Harvey piped up again before the information could unpack completely. "Since when have we gotten into the kidnapping business?:: Harvey asked. "That's a new wrinkle.::
::We've done abductions before,:: Sagan said. ::This is nothing new.::
"We've abducted adults,:: Harvey said. ::And generally speaking they've been people who mean us harm. This kidnapping actually involves a kid.::
::It's more like a grub,:: said Alex Roentgen, who by now had unpacked the mission briefing and had begun to go through it.
::Whatever,:: Harvey said. ::Grub, kid, child. The point is, we're going to use a young innocent as a bargaining chip. Am I right? And that's the first time we've done that. It's scummy.::
::This from the guy who usually has to be told not to blow shit up,:: Roentgen said.
Harvey glanced over to Roentgen. "That's right,:: he said. ::I usually am the guy you have to tell not to blow shit up. And I'm telling you that this mission stinks. What the fuck is wrong with the rest of you?::
::Our enemies don't have the same high standards as you, Harvey,:: Julie Einstein said, and forwarded a picture of the pile of children's corpses at Gettysburg. Jared shivered again.
::Does that mean we have to have the same low standards as they do?:: Harvey said.
