Cally's War

by John Ringo

  * * *

  Cally had escaped after dinner to her quarters which, being onboard a ship, resembled a broom closet with all the necessary furniture and electronics shoehorned in. Everything except a head. That was down the hall and wasn't exactly designed for meaningful privacy. The design specs for these hulls had been laid down when female humans had been few and far between in Fleet Strike, and Fleet had evolved a more relaxed attitude towards body modesty anyway. The upshot was that her shower shift in the morning had surreptitiously been more crowded than strictly necessary. Some of the troops who showered on her shift had almost certainly been scheduled for the other one. But as they didn't touch and were discreet about looking, and as Makepeace was enough of an airhead to get by with it, she affected not to notice. She did notice that the lieutenant was not among her covert admirers. He was on the same shift, but kept himself well along towards the end of the line of shower heads. At least, if he was looking, he was very good at not getting caught at it.

  She and Pryce were on the first meal shift with the other officer passengers and a few rather glum enlisteds that probably would have preferred the other shift for their chow.

  This left the problem of what to do while the second meal shift was using the mess hall. Since space was at a premium, however, they usually spent the time leaning against the wall in the passage outside. Cally tended to either linger over a second cup of coffee or play two-player Space Invaders against Pryce. They had discovered that they both shared an odd passion for very early arcade space games. He had offered to show her his collection of games once they got to Titan. She didn't think it was a line, and wasn't quite sure how she felt about that.

  Today Pryce had muttered something about needing something from his quarters. She hadn't paid much attention, grateful for the respite that gave her time over the coffee to sort out how she felt about him. He wasn't the clumsiest man she'd ever met, but he certainly wasn't graceful. Maybe Granpa's right. The job's starting to get to me. Okay, it's been a couple of weeks and I've got a normal, healthy set of hormones, but half the guys in the shower were as okay looking, and none of them were tripping over their own feet. Okay, the way that little strand of hair keeps falling across his forehead is kind of sexy, but . . . the job must be getting to me after all. The first acceptable excuse I get for getting laid I need to do something about some of these hormones.

  Her coffee cup was empty, so she went back into the mess hall for more. She could hear a couple of whispers, and feel the eyes, but the railroad tracks on her collar effectively prevented anything more overt. Pryce was back when she got back out with her fresh coffee.

  "I wonder what's on the cube this morning. Had a look?" she asked.

  "No, ma'am." He leaned against the wall just a bit outside normal conversational space, as if he was afraid of getting too close.

  "Okay. Why don't you tell me a little bit about our office setup on Titan. Have you been out there yet?" Her back was already aching a bit, and she stood away from the wall so she could arch back and take some pressure off of it, reaching a hand back to rub out the slight cramp.

  "What? Oh." He shook his head slightly. "I've been to Titan Base before, ma'am, but not to CID. I reported in to the general before he left Earth. Okay, ma'am, you know the general just took command of the Third MP Brigade on Titan. Most of the brigade, all but about two companies of it, brigade headquarters, and CID, is forward deployed with various combinations of the infantry. Most of the day to day management of the brigade is handled by the XO, Colonel Tartaglia. The general feels that the best use of his attention involves more of a hands-on focus with CID, so, other than the time-honored passing of canapés, that's where I'm likely to be spending most of my time. That's also why he wanted you familiar with so much of CID's background. If he asks you to find him something, he's . . . well, patience and explanations don't appear to be his strong suits, ma'am."

  "I'm looking forward to this assignment already," she commented dryly.

  * * *

  Stewart had always worked at jobs without fixed hours. When most teens his age had been watching the clock at fast food places, Stewart had been running a successful street gang under his original name, Manuel Guerrera. Then, as now, organizational problems and responsibilities often couldn't be pigeon-holed into set hours. Which was why he was lying here on his bunk, while Captain Makepeace was either in her cabin or doing God knew what, going through a list of names and detailed security profiles trying to detect which one or more of the people who had put in for assignment to the Fleet Strike CID on Titan were most likely to be plants of the nameless enemy organization revealed by their contact.

  The completed profiles had finally come in this morning, but his scheduled work with Makepeace had meant he couldn't go over them during the day. They were arriving in Titan orbit tomorrow afternoon, and he wanted the list done before they landed. Five more of their people had arrived on Titan while he was on Earth, and he wanted to know what he was looking at before he met them.

  It was a frustrating task because of their near total lack of information about the goals and motives of the enemy, beyond knowing that those goals included espionage against Federation military and civil government organizations, which in itself was enough to suggest unfriendly and likely hostile intentions. Their best guess so far was that someone in the humanist fringe had finally gotten organized, a thought that was frightening, given the number of feral Posleen that were still on Earth and other planets, and the extent to which Earth's defenses against a resurgence still depended heavily on purchase of Galtech technology and equipment.

  Constant vigilance against reorganization of the Posleen, including retaking previously conquered Galactic Federation real estate, was Fleet and Fleet Strike's highest priority. Each and every feral Posleen was a potential danger because each was born with the fundamental knowledge of the species. While most feral Posleen were the moronic and barely sentient normals, all Posleen were hermaphrodites who could self-fertilize in a pinch. A single smart God King could potentially rebuild the entire ravening hoard.

  Consequently, the first part of his task was to list all the humanist connections of the various personnel, and the second to list anything that stood out in the personnel or their friends and relatives as having any discontent with the Federation.

  It made for a long list, and a late night. Anders, for example, had a brother and a second cousin who were humanists, the brother more active, but she and her brother were allegedly estranged and hadn't spoken in years. Could be true. Could be a cover. Baker's family were Indianapolis Urbies and apparently apolitical. Carlucci had no family, and no close friends outside Fleet Strike. Sergeant Franks had a humanist wife who was profiled in the report as also believing the aliens were in league with the Masons, the Illuminati, and Satan—your typical, garden-variety humanist nut. It certainly made him a security risk. The rest was more of the same. Even Makepeace had a neighbor the next farm over with a humanist daughter. Out of fifteen people in the office, twelve had some sort of documented humanist connection. The other three, well, you never could tell, could you?

  * * *

  Titan Base had the worst case of smog in the inhabited universe. Approaching from the black of space, the glowing blue edge of the nitrogen atmosphere looked almost Earth-like, but the orange-brown layer of hydrocarbon smog, so thick as to be visually impenetrable, would have made prewar Los Angeles or Mexico City, or present day Chicago, look like sparkling bastions of atmospheric cleanliness.

  The shuttle didn't bother with artificial gravity, so the first part of their descent into Titan's atmosphere felt like riding up a steep hill, "down" being in the direction of the backs of their seats. Pryce had let her have the window seat, and Cally stared out the window in what she hoped was not complete tourist goggling. In fifty-one years of a life that in many ways had made ordinary cosmopolitan sophistication look positively cloistered, this was her first time off-planet. Fortunately, it was also Sinda's first time off
-planet, so she didn't really need to restrain natural curiosity and excitement too much.

  The lieutenant reached over her shoulder, pointing at a fluffy white mass. "Look, a cloud. We don't see too many of those."

  "It's methane, isn't it?" She stared out the window.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  As they moved into the heavy brown haze, they also curved around into the nighttime side of the moon. The outside blackened. Unfortunately, they were at the wrong angle for her window to have a view of Saturn. They crested the "hill" of freefall and then started "down," pressing lightly forward against their five-point seatbelts as the shuttle began braking.

  "Will we be able to see Saturn from the base?" She craned her neck to see if there was anything interesting still visible through the darkened window.

  "Only as an occasional hazy bright spot in the dark, ma'am." He smiled regretfully. "Other than that and the Sun for a couple of days when we're close to noon, it's pretty much like living in an underwater birdcage with a blanket thrown over it. Well, if the bird had electric lighting," he added, grinning.

  Landing was a couple of muffled thumps, and, at one-seventh her accustomed weight, did feel extraordinarily like being at the bottom of a swimming pool.

  "And now is when we're glad for the warmth of our silks," he said.

  "How cold is it?"

  "Outside? About minus one-forty C. In the tube to the dome, a handful of degrees below zero." He unbuckled his seat belt and stood.

  "Brrrr." She shuddered. "They can't get it warmer?"

  "Won't." He shrugged. "It's a safety issue. The whole base is built on various ices. One of our biggest engineering challenges, besides the overpressure, is minimizing heat leakages that could destabilize the ground underneath us."

  "Couldn't they insulate? Or float?" As she stood, she had to reach back and rub the achey place at the base of her spine.

  "Oh, they do insulate, ma'am. Believe me they do. This platform and the base itself are actually about fifty feet off the ground, to let air circulate underneath. Short term, you can build on the ground, and it's not as much of a problem with ground research vehicles because they move. But you just don't want to put a big hot spot on top of ice for a few centuries. Flotation was one of the designs considered, but ultimately discarded. Something about gravitational effects and stability issues."

  "It's all ice? There isn't, well, rock underneath it?" She looked as if she couldn't quite grasp the concept.

  "Some. Not enough," he said.

  "And can't the Crabs do gravity?"

  "Sure, and they did, for the base itself. I think cost considerations counted a lot in the choice of the final design." He motioned her out into the aisle in front of him.

  The chill bit at her cheeks and nose and she could see her breath as they made the short walk, with the other passengers, through the tube into the main dome of Titan Base. The air smelled vaguely like a gas station.

  "What's the smell?" She wrinkled her nose and waved a hand at the air.

  "Leakage. With this much overpressure, there's bound to be some. It's a trade-off. They could have made the place more leak proof, but it would have cost a lot more. Or so I'm told." He gripped her elbow as they crossed a red line on the floor and full gravity returned abruptly.

  She'd been expecting it and hadn't expected to fall at all, but suddenly she stumbled against him as her elbow tingled where he'd touched it as though she'd just touched a live wire. She was suddenly short of breath and she actually blushed as he steadied her back on her feet. What the hell? He's not that attractive. Okay, he smells pretty nice. Check that. Real good. But so what. My God, what is wrong with me? Must be the excitement of my first trip off-planet. Who'da thunk?

  As they moved from the tube through the doors into the shuttle port, and then through the double-glass doors out of the arrival area, the temperature warmed quite a bit, but she could still see her breath. The air felt heavy, cold and heavy.

  A line of reproduction analog clocks across the wall gave the local time and the time in various time zones on Earth. She noted with a start that local time and the local "day" was set to be synchronized with Chicago, as ship's time on the courier had been. Wow, she didn't even have to change her watch.

  Small, potted evergreen trees were tucked along the walls. The lieutenant must have noticed her puzzled expression as he turned and led her through double doors into a room that was obviously the shuttle port bar.

  "It's not just to look nice. That's part of it, but they're also a cheap way of scrubbing some of the hydrocarbon volatiles out of the air. The small-scale oxygen release is just a bonus," he said.

  The bar was warm enough to take off their gloves, and she began looking around for someplace to set her laptop case down for a minute. He pulled out one of the tall, backed barstools for her, folding his thin but warm gloves and tucking them into the pocket in the lining of his beret.

  It was about three in the afternoon Greenwich, and the bar was empty but for the Asian bartender who was busying himself washing glassware and watching a vid. As the lieutenant put her coat aside and she climbed onto the stool, he hung the glass he'd just rinsed on the rack and walked on over.

  "What can I get for you Pryce, Captain?" He took a towel and absentmindedly rubbed at a small water-spot on his bar.

  "Two Irish coffees, Sam, short on the Irish." He turned to her. "Would it surprise you, ma'am, to find out hot drinks are popular here?" he asked.

  "Oh, terribly." She laughed. "Why is it chilly on the base itself?"

  "I've heard two theories. The first is the conventional one of controlling heat pollution. The second is that someone in the design team saw that the average temperature on Earth was fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit and decided that was the optimum setting." He quirked an eyebrow at her and waited.

  "The second makes a nice story." She laughed and took a sip of the coffee when it arrived, then set it down.

  "You know, when I went through officer basic, I don't think they recommended reporting to your new CO with alcohol on your breath," she said.

  "Ma'am, Beed's a real vintage sort, but he's from before that late twentieth century PC craze. As long as we don't show up drunk and unfit for duty, and we won't, he won't care."

  "Well, that's one good thing about this assignment." She cupped her hands around the mug and took a long, appreciative sip. Sam made one hell of a cup of coffee.

  * * *

  After picking up their luggage from baggage claim, they had boarded one of the transit cars that ran on horizontal and vertical tracks, in singles or chains, throughout the base. Stewart carried the captain's bag in addition to his own as he guided them to a departing car with empty seats. The car was one of a line that appeared grouped together, though not physically connected. The light bar across the top of the front car spelled out the destination: Fleet Strike Quadrant. Judging from the volume of traffic, the shuttle from Earth had not been the only one coming in at roughly the same time. The light blue berets of the infantry surrounded their own gray ones, and Sinda looked around curiously. He supposed she hadn't seen many troops who were actually on deployment, having been immured in Personnel for most of her short career.

  "The base is divided into four roughly equal sections, ma'am," he explained. "Fleet and Transient quadrants are on either side of us, Engineering and Fleet Strike on the other side."

  "Wouldn't it make more sense to have the shuttle port next to engineering for incoming supplies?" she asked.

  "There is one. This is the passenger port."

  "So," she gestured with her PDA, "is there a map of this place that I can download, or something?"

  "Sure. Hang on and I'll beam it to you, ma'am." He tapped a few keys and pointed his PDA at hers so she could download. "The BOQ is highlighted. Your quarters are marked in red, mine in blue, the office in green."

  "You have my quarters marked on your map?" she teased. "What, is the red for stop?"

  "For danger, at least, ma'am."r />
  "And work is safe? You're an interesting person, Lieutenant," she said. "So, it looks like the BOQ is on the way. It's probably best to drop off our bags before reporting in."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Don't worry, Lieutenant. I'll carry my own bag in. No need for you to enter the danger zone."

  "Thank you, ma'am." He turned his head and looked out the transit car window so she wouldn't see his eyes narrow. Minx. That does it. Just you wait, Sinda Makepeace.

  Chapter Eleven

  Monday, June 3

  The general's office, and her office, were on an upper, outer level of the dome, so that instead of looking up to more ceilings, the hallways on that level extended upward to an imperceptibly curving stretch of dome. For all the good it did. Right now it was near high noon on Titan, and the sky outside the dome was a uniformly muddy, dark, orange-brown. The glow paint, of course, had to be along the top two feet of the walls, but to compensate for the reduced lighting surface area caused by the lack of space on the ceiling it was set brighter than was normal in the rest of the base.

  The walls of institutional green Galplas with battleship gray doors gave the impression that if anyone on the design or maintenance teams had had an ounce of interior decorating talent, he had been taking great care to conceal it. There was a sign next to the door as they approached, identifying the door as leading to Headquarters, Third MP Brigade. The lieutenant was reporting in to the general, too, and got to the door slightly ahead of her, presenting his ID to the door which automatically checked his IR profile against the records on the ID and in the database, and, finding a match, admitted them.

  Inside, there was a reception desk and signs that pointed to CID leading away to the right, and Office of the Commanding General, to the left. Behind the desk, the corporal's nametag identified her as Anders. Behind the corporal, on the back wall, was a large holoscreen of a waterfall—on Earth, judging by the vegetation on the banks.