Last night he’d stopped his investigations after running through ‘I want to get out of here as soon as possible’ and seeing no cards. That had become quite the puzzle. The most obvious implication being that he would never get out. That seemed an unlikely premise, unless of course the ship were to be destroyed.
And that had been a troubling thought. In his mind, the Arcadia was an untouchable haven far from the perils of combat. When forced to give the matter consideration, he realised that, although the carrier had far greater protection than the Warhorse, it was a proportionately more valuable target to the enemy.
Trying to solve the puzzle had made him realise that he couldn’t see the ‘natural’ future. He had attempted a wide variety of ‘I want’ statements to attempt to get a glimpse of the unaltered order of events, but ultimately, he came up with no cards every time.
This left two possibilities, either there was nothing he could do to get out of prison faster or the original nightmare scenario of his death occurring before his escape. He decided to try and ‘cheat’ the limitation of his power by investigating possible futures that would require him to be out of prison: asking for a stew in the mess, leaving his copy of Draft 7 on the Captain’s desk and so on.
Happily, in all instances, he was taken from his cell within the next hour and set loose. The notion of his impending release put him in a jovial mood, and he allowed himself to fancifully mess around with his ability as he counted down the minutes until the guards would come to get him.
His jocundity was extinguished in an instant when he whimsically tried I want to keep the Undying from losing a single pilot in the war.
There were no cards.
That had been a chilling blow, but on some level, he’d always known someone wasn’t going to make it. Phillip’s confidence was infectious, but at the back of every mind is a cynic who knows idealism when they hear it.
Still, suspecting someone wouldn’t make it was a very different thing to knowing one of the fifteen men and women that had sweated through training alongside him was going to be killed in action. It was like already being at the funeral.
He found himself exploring propositions he knew he shouldn’t. The sort whose answers were beyond the reach of the common man for good reason.
I want to keep the Clumsy from dying in this war
No cards. Tarek began to sweat
Eternity?
No cards.
Softball, Wraith, Errant, Bracket?
These last names failed as well but in a different way. Instead of a howling wind empty of possibility it was the uncontained multitude of possibilities that did not represent a true want. He could save them well enough if he wanted, but nothing he could do would save Kelly.
And why not? What had she done to deserve an immovable death mark from this war? Kind, thoughtful, and wise, she was surely not to be used just as grist for the war mill. The unfairness appalled and shocked him. He all but clawed at the fabric of time with a succession of propositions, trying to find a loophole, a mistake, or even a justification for taking away someone who left spaces so much brighter than she’d found them.
Finally pulling himself back, Tarek began to meditate for real, working to push back the fringes of a kind of desperate madness he’d felt beginning to encroach on his mind. His power could accomplish almost anything given sufficient time, perhaps a new answer would present itself.
He had settled significantly when he was jarred out of his trance by the harsh metallic buzz that signalled his cell door was unlocking.
****
It was a party, and there were so many people present that the brass had to be wondering where everyone had gone.
Half the Undying were there, including Kelly and Phillips, and outside of briefings that was the most combat pilots allowed to gather in one place to prevent a surprise attack wiping out the carrier’s air wing. The fact that a few of Cold Sabre Squadron had shown up, and even a couple of the standoffish Exodites, meant people liked him enough to push the edges of that particular rule.
The shuttle pilots from the Logistics Wing had arrived on time and in full force, showing solidarity and perhaps hoping to look better by association. Surprising numbers of Navy Crew, representing everything from Flight Control to Laundry, came with similar intent, demonstrating that solidarity and association could be stretched to breaking point. Literally hundreds of men and women from the embarked ground troops were present, and Lieutenant Rease was somehow eminently visible among them.
Their resident Block Officer was apparently Twos, and he dropped in more regularly than his patrol rotation ought to suggest. He came up with a wide variety of regulations the party was breaching, infractions for which the fines were somehow universally snacks and alcohol.
The snacks, being lifted from various mess halls and personal stashes, had only lasted for the first fifteen minutes. After that, the only thing they weren’t short on was alcohol. Indeed, the sheer volume of booze that had apparently been smuggled aboard ship would have made Richter go into palpitations.
With so many attending, it was standing room only, but that was okay because there was only a single chair and that was a plain mess hall piece that had been placed on an ad-hoc stage of crates. Tarek had been forced to sit on it for the duration as the crowd filtered up to him with congratulations, praise, heartfelt gratitude, and a few offers to find a quiet place afterwards –and throughout, the constant reminder that they’d ‘saved’ the seat for him.
Whatever the hell that meant.
Presently Jackson was on the stage beside Tarek giving a re-enactment of Warhorse’s second rescue using a box of tiny models he’d stolen from the Little Quarterdeck and another crate as a table.
“Here is Box Grid,” Jackson said putting down a small castle tower used to mark fortified positions. “And here is, the beautiful Lieutenant Kyra Rease.”
With that he produced the little arcom model and placed it at the top of the tower. A commotion followed shortly when someone snatched it from the table and gave it a long dress fashioned from a folded napkin. That raised even more protest that it would be a cold day in hell that saw Rease wearing a dress.
After imploring the crowd to let him continue, Jackson was finally given something everyone could agree on.
“Okay… this dog, is the beautiful Lieutenant Kyra Rease… I guess,” Jackson said putting a puppy, evidently hand-carved from wood, at the top of the tower.
“It’s a wolf, ya git!” someone called out.
“And I’m the Admiral’s daughter,” Jackson shouted back.
“Show us your tits!” a drunk implored.
Briefly Jackson pulled up his shirt to wild cheers and a few more unsavoury comments before he returned to his story.
“So there’s a dog in a tower doing something so secret that I heard the crew of an entire ship had to be killed because one man found out.
“There was an accident, and I won’t name names…” Jackson pointedly glared at the Exodites. “…but the Maulers were alerted, and it had all the makings of a world-class SNAFU.” He placed a handful of little Mauler figures around the tower.
“Fortunately, our man Silver was sent in to rescue his dog.” He patted the small carving. “He was charging in, high speed, low to avoid the flak.” Dramatically the pilot produced a knight piece from a chess set and mimed it soaring in from the audience. “But there was the Mauler fighter.”
Jackson produced another piece that was definitely not from the briefing models; this was a colourful plastic dragon wildly out of scale with the others.
“Now, in the storied history of the Constellation Armed Forces, a Heavy Lifter has never won an engagement with a Scarab. There’s lot of reasons for this: the weight, the total lack of armaments, and above all the fact that our man Andrew hadn’t done it yet.
“So Silver soared in on the Mauler, making what is, and I know this ’cause I’m the co-pilot, a big bitch of a ship dance in and out of their sights, never giving
them a chance for a kill shot. Chain gun rounds came so close to the window I coulda named them.
“As he closed in, the Scarab thought it was gonna get rammed, but Tarek is not that careless with public property. The Mauler shied away and Tarek jinked hard, in fact he double jinked and then double jinked again to make four jinks…” Jackson held up four fingers. “…the legendary quarto-jinki, the only move that can throw a missile lock from one ship to another.”
“But you said the Maulers were using cannons!” someone protested.
“Oh, I did but what I didn’t mention was that Tarek had the Exodites fire one of their missiles, not at the Mauler but at Our. Own. Ship. It had followed us all the way in until he foxed it at the last minute and sent it straight up that Scarab’s ass.” Jackson made an exploding noise and threw the dragon into the crowd.
“That’s really not how it happened,” Tarek protested. “I lead the Exodites in, but they did all the work.”
“You…” Jackson pointed a finger at him. “…are drunk. So shut up.”
Tarek looked at his half-empty glass and struggled to remember how much he’d had, a difficult piece of maths considering people kept refilling it, much as a pretty young ensign was doing now. Shrugging, he just decided to roll with it. He wasn’t great at parties, and all these people certainly seemed to know what they were doing.
“I’m not done yet, not by a long shot,” Jackson said. “So Silver lands and picks up the damsel.” He placed the carved dog on the back of the horse figure. After a pause, he held it up and raised an eyebrow. “Is it just me or does that dog look like its having carnal knowledge with a horse.”
The crowd laughed long and hard at that with much slapping of backs and spilling of drinks before things finally calmed down.
“So Tarek is being violated by a dog,” Jackson repeated, struggling to keep a straight face, “when he turns to head home and what should he see?” With a turn of his wrist, he upended whole box of Mauler miniatures onto the table. “The entire goddamn Mauler race between him and the Arcadia.”
Jackson’s story became entirely fictional from that point, with Tarek using everything from lightning bolts to the never before seen ‘sextuple-jinki’ which Jackson also claimed was a bedroom move he’d be willing to show any six women bold enough to join him afterwards. The story also described the kiss Tarek had received when they got back to the Arcadia, and the Lieutenant was asked to repeat it.
She made a show of protest before finally giving in, sitting across his lap and repeating the toe-curling kiss from earlier. Tarek was sufficiently inebriated at this point that he was entirely unaware of any portion of the kiss that might have been ‘for show’. The crowd cheered wildly, and among other comments someone shouted out ‘now fuck him like a horse’. Rease raised an eyebrow as though she might be seriously considering it before saying ‘maybe later’ and disappearing into the crowd.
The remainder of the afternoon became quite a blur for Tarek. He had memories of being about to leave with the pretty young ensign, leading into vague snippets of Kelly intercepting him and, despite some unkind comments of his own, chatting with him like he wasn’t being a complete tool.
Chapter VI
Not I
Tarek’s next memory was of throwing up into one of the disposals with such vigour that it left his whole body shaking with exhaustion. When he finally pulled his head away, he dully recognised that he was in one of the observation posts overlooking the portside launch racks.
The Arcadia had a huge variety of systems for determining damage, but for every complex electronic mechanism there had to be a manual backup. That was the purpose of the observation posts, separated from the hull by bulkheads they were positioned in elevated locations where simple magnifiers could be used to assess external hull damage. Though they had only a single bench and were and not much bigger than a small kitchen, they had great views and little official traffic. This made them favourite spots for people wanting some quiet introspection, or quiet hangover recovery.
Phillips appeared and handed him a water canteen and a couple of orange pills which he took gratefully. After a little rehydration the tablets started to take effect, and Tarek began to feel a little more like himself. It was then that he noticed his copy of Draft 7.5 was on the bench next to the Lieutenant Commander.
Phillips caught his gaze and picked up the booklet, offering it out to him. When Tarek reached to take it, the other didn’t release his grip.
“So this is how you did it.” Phillips asked, or perhaps stated.
“Would you believe me if I said it was?” Tarek said, rubbing his face with his free hand, he felt in no state to handle a conversation like this.
“I would,” he said releasing the pages. “My father has found enough to convince me there are people who possess a latent ability, but you are what he’s been searching for. One whose abilities aren’t subconscious. Someone who can pick and choose the future.”
“Are you going to tell him?” Tarek asked, not sure what answer he wanted.
Phillips didn’t answer directly, or even quickly. He stared out across the hull for a moment. “I do not envy you. I would do a lot to avoid having a power like that.”
Tarek gave a small laugh. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I wouldn’t have made much of a difference here without.”
“Maybe, but have you considered what will happen when you make a mistake?”
A sobering cold flushed through Tarek as the words made him suddenly aware that he was functionally talking to a dead man. He wondered if he should say, but how did you bring something like that up: by the way you’re on death row and you don’t even know it.
Phillips said, “I make decisions every day on how I want to make a difference, and I know that some of those choices will turn out to be wrong.” His words trailed off as a wing of fighters left the launch racks below.
Almost as soon as they cleared the racks, the five Snowhawks shrank into the void, becoming little more than points of light moving in formation as they swept out past the other carrier. All of the fighters had been unidentifiable and identical, except one. Someone with no small talent had painted a set of ghostly feathers across the trailing half of its wings.
“It’s a nice sentiment, Commander. But our circumstances are fundamentally different. You’re an… a Peer of the Realm, leading a combat squadron. You don’t exactly need an edge to make a difference.”
“According to that…” Phillips nodded to the booklet in Tarek’s hand but he never took his eyes off the fading points of light beyond the glass. “…you don’t create new paths, you just learn about them. Your dramatic acts of heroism were always open to you. The difference between our circumstances are simply that I have the benefit of never knowing which ones are wrong until afterwards.”
“Wouldn’t you want to know which ones were right in advance? Surely that would lead to fewer regrets?”
“Would it? Suppose you looked into the future and found a way that would end the war tomorrow but you would be the only survivor. Would that be the right choice?”
“That’s a somewhat extreme example.”
“It is. What if you could end the war in a month at the cost of half our species? Or even a quarter? An eighth?” The Lieutenant commander smiled wanly at him and the pity in his eyes stung. “When I take a risk that might lead to a loss of life. I don’t really know what will happen, and so as long as my choices are motivated by the preservation of the values I hold, they cannot be wrong. At least not to me.
“For you – for anyone with perfect foresight – you are not just choosing to end the war, you are choosing exactly what price will be paid to do it, and even who will pay that price. It would be so easy to lose yourself in those choices. What room is there for love or compassion or honour when you know exactly what it will cost to be the man you want to be.”
“So what would you do?”
“If I could, I would forget I ever found this power.”
<
br /> Tarek shook his head and immediately regretted it as the room spun a little. He steadied himself against the window and put a palm against his temple.
“I doubt I could either,” Phillips admitted. “I want to honour my mother’s memory… or maybe just prove my father wrong. I want to be the best pilot in the Constellation, and like everyone else here, I want to finish off the Maulers so we can go home.” He shifted uncomfortably where he stood. “But as soon as I looked into the future at what was necessary to make those things happen I’d be committed because, otherwise, I would be choosing not to make them happen. I would be choosing all the lost lives as the war dragged on and it would haunt me every day.
“And if I did follow my vision, I would become a tool of it to the cost of all else. Aristide, they would say, he was as cold and cruel as the winter night, but I guess he won the war so let’s sing three quiet and fearful cheers.”
Phillips shook his head. “Who I really want to be is not a war hero or a son who surpassed his father. The truth of Aristide Phillips is in the little goals, not the large steps. I would use my power to walk away from every battle with myself, and my pilots, unscathed. I would use it to dodge enemy fire and shoot down Maulers. I would use it to pinpoint lost pilots who no one else could find and on the darkest nights, I would use it to bring the fleet back home when we were past the last marker with no clear way forward.
“In the end it might not win the war, but if I can’t end this conflict on my terms perhaps I don’t want too.”
There was a heavy silence. Tarek spoke into it.
“That’s a little selfish, isn’t it?”
“Maybe so,” Phillips said. “But even on a busy street in Paris, you can’t know what others really want or need. Out here, we’re a long way from anywhere and isolated by so much void and conflict each of us has only a tall ship and a star to guide them. If you choose a star that is good and true, no one will consider you selfish, even if the outcome is not what you intended or imagined.”
Threshold of Victory Page 15
