Markov's Prize

by Mark Barber

  “And do what?” Van Noor demanded, ignoring the irony of Tahl’s advice given Owenne’s accusations. “Go home to my wife and kids? Tell them that I never had the affair they say I did, because their real husband and father got his brains blown out by an Isorian sniper and now I’m here instead?”

  “You’re the same guy!” Tahl insisted. “Your memories up to a single point are real! And that affair happened after that point! It wasn’t you!”

  “It was in Becca’s eyes,” Van Noor sank down to sit on a felled tree trunk. “And even if it wasn’t me, it still proves what I’m capable of.”

  “We’re all capable of doing the wrong thing if we don’t know any better,” Tahl countered, “and now you know. You’d never do that. Not now.”

  Van Noor suppressed a yawn and looked up at the twin suns for a moment, taking a deep breath and pausing to listen to the waves cascading across the beach.

  “You’d better get going,” he said to Tahl, “you don’t want another lecture from nano-man.”

  “We’ll talk about this when I get back,” Tahl said, replacing his beret.

  “Have you told her yet?” Van Noor said.

  Tahl looked down.

  “Don’t you think you’d better?”

  Tahl nodded slowly. “I’ve tried a couple of times. I just haven’t found the… I’ll go do it now. See you in a couple of weeks.”

  ***

  With the fine sand between her toes and the system’s two suns warming the side of her face, Rhona could have been on one of the idyllic family holidays she had read about as a child. With her boots and black beret in the sand next to her, she sat near the water’s edge clad in her green trousers and shirt, a few qualification badges pinned above the left breast pocket and the red stripes of her rank on her epaulettes. Leaning forward against her knees, she looked down at the white datapad in her hands and thought through another letter to her brother.

  “To be honest, Micha, I’m struggling. I don’t like the military, I hate fighting, and I don’t even get on with the people. Any of them. I’m watching decent guys and girls dying every few days – on both sides. Some of them I’m killing myself, and I hate it. I’m relying on shard assistance to stay sane and using up my battlesuit’s emergency drugs faster than I should be just to keep depression at bay, and I miss home. I still miss Pa and it’s been four years now. I’d do anything to just leave this all behind and come to hang out with you.”

  Of course, that would not do. Since she had lost her mother during her little brother’s birth, she had always been the guardian and protector of Micha. That was her job as big sister. He did not need to hear the truth, it would only upset him and she wanted him to be happy, all the time. If she could not be happy, at least he could. And then there was that incident last time she visited him at college. He was only just talking to her again and any suggestion of another visit would be ill advised. She mentally deleted the entire message and started again, her thoughts appearing as words on the screen.

  “Dear Micha,

  How’s the course going? I hope you’re not studying too hard. I’m glad to hear you’ve got a good bunch of friends. Don’t worry about that stupid girl you mentioned; by the time she realizes what she’s missing, it’ll be too late – you’ll be with the right person. It’s always the way, stupid girls go after the wrong guys until they grow up, and by then most of the good guys are taken. And trust me, Micha, you are one of the good guys.

  Things are cool here, you should see this place! Sun, sea, and sand. We’ve got a batterball court, a gym, all sorts of stuff. It barely feels like a conflict. Don’t worry about anything you see in the news, you know how people like to exaggerate. We’re all fine here, only a few skirmishes now and then, and I always seem to miss them!”

  “Rhona?”

  Rhona looked up and saw Tahl stood over her. She quickly scrambled to her feet and pulled her beret on, as regulations dictated. The brown haired man held one hand up.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said, but she continued and pulled her boots on regardless.

  “What’s up, sir?”

  Tahl clasped his hands behind his back and looked down for a moment before meeting her gaze, but even then he looked away almost instantly.

  “I need to talk to you. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something for some time now.”

  Rhona folded her arms. She knew when a man was attracted to her. She had received this sort of attention for nearly ten years. The trick was not to be a bitch about it when the feelings were not reciprocated.

  “I need to apologize,” Tahl continued, “about your promotion. About the pressure I’ve put you under.”

  “Nah, it’s cool,” Rhona shrugged, “I’ve got this.”

  “You don’t understand,” Tahl winced. “When we need somebody promoting, C3 makes an assessment based on pure logic. A list of candidates for promotion is provided to the company commander, who then makes the decision. The decision has to be made by a panhuman as the whole point in us having our military shard is to give us that freedom of thought which civilians don’t have. So we’ve got that tactical flexibility, and it’s exactly the same with choosing who gets promoted – it’s a panhuman choice. But it’s very rare for a company commander not to pick the top name on the list, as the system doesn’t really make mistakes.”

  “So… what?” Rhona asked in genuine confusion. “Where’s this going?”

  “The list had five names, in order of merit. You were fifth on the list.”

  “So why did you pick me over four better candidates?” Rhona asked.

  Tahl opened his mouth to speak, but he looked away again and seemed to process a different line of though in his mind. The truth dawned before Tahl could manage to vocalize his thoughts. Rhona shook her head in genuine disappointment.

  “I thought you were better than that, sir,” she said, feeling a slight struggle to retain her calm composure. “You should be above using your rank and authority to try to score with good looking girls.”

  “It’s not that!” Tahl closed his eyes in desperation. “I came here to apologize because I made a bad decision. I…”

  “Well seeing that you and I had never even exchanged words before you promoted me, not once, I kinda draw the conclusion that you didn’t promote me on my sparkling personality,” Rhona said with deliberation as she planted both of her clenched fists on her hips.

  “Yeah,” Tahl admitted, “I promoted you because of the way you look. I’m sorry.”

  Rhona turned away and swore.

  “Seriously? In this day and age? What were you expecting from me? You’ve put me in a position where my decisions affect whether people live or die. I’m the wrong person for the job, and for all I know, there’s dead people who would be alive right now if you’d done your job properly and put the right guy in my shoes. What did you think you’d get out of this? That I’m the sort of woman who’d think ‘yeah, cool! My commanding officer has promoted me so I might as well screw him!’? You’ve got a position of power and responsibility, and you abused it. You should be ashamed. Sir.”

  Tahl offered no resistance. Rhona unbuttoned her epaulettes and removed her rank slides, looking down at them pensively for a few moments before speaking again.

  “I don’t know where we go from here,” Rhona said. “I’m not going to throw these at you like some petulant teenager. You’ve put me in this position, and now I have responsibilities to fulfill. You realize that this is grounds for a very serious complaint against you?”

  “Yes, I do, and I wouldn’t blame you. Or offer any defense.”

  “I’m not gonna do it,” Rhona exhaled, “I’m not really the vengeful type and it wouldn’t achieve anything. But if I’m honest, sir, I’d rather you kept your distance from me from now on.”

  Ignoring one final apology, Rhona slid her rank slides back on her shoulders and walked back toward the accommodation block.

  ***

  As it always seemed, with
her previous squad as well as the current one, the communal area of the accommodation rooms fell silent as Rhona entered. Gant, Qan, and Clythe sat playing holographically projected shooting games whilst Jemmel, Rae, and Sessetti lounged on their bunks in their respective cubicles. Rhona stopped just before her own cubicle and turned to face the others.

  “We’re going for a squad run,” she declared. “Tomorrow morning, first thing. All of us together.”

  “Why?” Gant demanded, his back still facing her.

  “Because every other squad is doing something every day to stay on top of core military skills, whilst we’re doing nothing.”

  “Fair enough,” Qan shrugged. “Sunrise suit you, Lead?”

  Rhona paused suspiciously before answering.

  “Yeah. Sunrise will do fine.”

  Rhona retreated to her cubicle and shut the sound proof partition behind her, throwing her beret on her bunk before using her mental connection to the shard to change the appearance of the room’s walls, creating two false viewscreens which gave a simulated view of deep space. She sank down in one corner of the room, hugged one knee and stared out at the image of the stars which only an individual who had spent years in deep space could tell was false. She spent a few moments beginning to mentally process her exchange with Tahl before a light knock sounded against the partition.

  “Yeah?”

  The thin wall opened and Rae stepped through before closing it behind her again. Her battlesuit replaced with her olive green uniform, she appeared waif like and even vulnerable.

  “You okay?” She asked, a little meekly.

  “Yeah,” Rhona replied, furrowing her brow to deliberately signal her confusion.

  “I just…well… we don’t see much of you. Just thought I’d say hello,” Rae offered uncomfortably.

  “Nah, I’m cool,” Rhona said. “The thought is appreciated, though. Don’t worry about me, I’m just happy in my own company.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Rae said. “I guess we’re a lot alike with that.”

  Rhona refrained from answering. In her opinion, she was nothing at all like Rae. They could both be very quiet women, but for very different reasons.

  “Was life growing up outside the Concord very different?” Rae suddenly asked.

  Rhona paused to contemplate the question. It seemed harmless enough. Rae perched at the end of Rhona’s bunk.

  “Yeah, it was different. A lot more dangerous, a lot more difficult, but in a lot of ways it was way more fun. Less sterile. It wasn’t just this endless existence of comfort and fun that life in the Concord gives you, as a civilian at least. In the Determinate, life threw a lot more challenges.”

  “Well, life can be challenging in the Concord, too,” Rae offered. “Before I joined C3, I had a fashion outlet with my brother. We designed clothes, evening wear mainly.”

  “Why?” Rhona asked. “There’s no currency in the Concord, so why work for a living?”

  “The number of people who wear your clothes still defines how successful your artistic pursuit is,” Rae explained patiently. “So that’s worthwhile. It gives a real feeling of accomplishment when you see your ideas being worn by a complete stranger, or your clothes getting a good review. But it’s not easy. Lots of people want to do it, and even the drones which actually produce the clothes have enough knowledge to come up with designs of their own. It’s hard to make a mark, creatively.”

  Rhona suppressed her initial thoughts.

  “You got any pictures of your stuff?” She forced the conversation onward.

  “Yeah,” Rae sat down against the wall next to her and produced a small datapad from her pocket, using it to project a number of images in the center of the room which she proceeded to explain in some detail. Rhona feigned interest but could instantly see why the overly complex designs were not as popular as Rae would have liked. She still felt patronized by the other woman’s belief that her life had been hard. She did not know hardship. Rhona waited for a pause in the conversation before changing subject.

  “My mom died when I was seven,” she said. “She died giving birth to my little brother. That could never have happened in the Concord. If I was raised as a Concord citizen, I’d still have my mom.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Rae said sincerely. “I never knew, I didn’t mean to…”

  “I didn’t mean to belittle your problems,” Rhona lied, already feeling guilt for hijacking a perfectly innocent exchange with her burdens. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m just sorry my brother could never know her. She was awesome, the best mom you could ever hope for.”

  “What does your dad do?” Rae asked.

  “You ever see that old HV show, the one about the super cool smuggler who jets around the galaxy ripping off bad guys and screwing hot chicks in every episode?”

  “Erm… Lone Rogue?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. My pa kinda thought he was the dude from that show. Even down to the bandana and flares. But pa was kinda dumb. He was a lovely guy and his heart was always in the right place, but he just wasn’t half as smooth or half as clever as he thought he was. He made a lot of enemies out of a lot of dangerous people.”

  “I couldn’t help but notice you used the past tense,” Rae said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Rhona sighed, “we lost our pa, too. Pissed off one too many bad dudes. I had to take Micha and run. That’s how I ended up in the Concord, I was on the run from the guys who killed my pa; but when I stop and think about it, there wasn’t really any point as they didn’t want anything from me and Micha. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

  “Sometimes it’s good to get these things out, I guess?” Rae offered. “I mean, I know we don’t really know each other, but I think I’m maybe a better listener than any of those other guys through there.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Rhona stopped talking. She already felt she had said enough. She hoped the silence would be obvious enough to encourage Rae to leave. Rae did not pick up on the hint.

  “What did you do before you were a soldier?”

  “I was a dancer,” Rhona said, “in clubs. Both in the Determinate and for a year in the Concord.”

  “Like, ballroom?”

  Rhona found herself laughing at that, genuinely. The few seconds of mirth were the best she had felt in weeks.

  “No, not ballroom,” she finally managed to smile at the red faced Rae. “I was a pole dancer and also did lap dancing.”

  “Why would you do that?” Rae blurted.

  “Because… life outside the Concord ain’t easy. It throws challenges at you. A couple of days after my eighteenth birthday, some crime lord and his boys come find me and explain how much money my pa owes them. They say they can either kill him or I can work off the debt. That’s how I started dancing in bars. I did it for five years. Gave Micha another five years with his pa ‘til even I couldn’t keep them from killing him.”

  “I’ve got to stop asking you things,” Rae sighed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry your life has been so difficult.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t all bad!” Rhona beamed. “Those five years were actually pretty cool at times. The girls in that bar were a real good bunch. We were as close as sisters. We all had a story behind how we got there and we all looked out for each other. And to tell you the truth, the pole dancing was kinda awesome. There’s far worse ways to make a buck. After the first few weeks, I got into it. I was damn good at it.”

  “You think you’ll go back to it after you’re discharged from C3?” Rae asked.

  “I dunno,” Rhona yawned. “Look, I’m gonna go get some sleep. Thanks for the talk.”

  “That’s alright,” Rae stood up and backed off toward the partition. “Night, then.”

  Rhona waited until she had left before kicking off her boots and sinking down onto her bunk, switching off the lights with a quick thought command to leave her small room lit only by the stars. It took her a long time to fall asleep.

  Chapter Five

 
; “Formation Commander!” Van Noor bellowed as he snapped to attention at the doorway of the briefing auditorium.

  The assembled strike troopers immediately stood, bringing their heels together as an absolute silence replaced the idle conversation which had echoed around the pale blue walls moments before. Strike Commander Orless, the formation’s commanding officer, walked past him at the door, nodding a brief acknowledgement of the mark of respect for his rank. Tall, slim, with greying temples and hawkish features, Orless was a man of considerable combat experience. Two paces behind walked Mandarin Owenne, his pale features even more prominent in the stark auditorium lighting. The two senior officers stood at the front of the auditorium, where a stage and lectern were ready for the briefing.

  “Take a seat,” Orless instructed the assembled troopers.

  The veteran commander cast his eyes around the assembled troopers. Three men on the back row briefly exchanged a joke as they sat; their smiles were instantly replaced by anxious expressions as Orless shot a withering state in their direction. Van Noor knew Tahl’s reputation – the troopers knew he had killed men with his bare hands in the most dangerous fighting competition in the Antarean space. The ill-conceived logic, therefore, was that Tahl should be feared even by his own troopers. In actual fact, Van Noor found him to be quite the opposite – too warm, too caring, and often failing to produce results as a consequence. Orless was the exact opposite. Van Noor, even with his decades of experience, regularly found himself modeling his behavior and interactions on the cold-faced strike commander.

  “I shall be quick, as I have to get around all six companies of the formation,” Orless began. “First and foremost, congratulations on a job well done here on Markov’s Prize. The government officially capitulated two hours ago. With most of the planet’s defenses lowered, the majority of the population has now been integrated and are Concord citizens who you can depend on for support. However, several regions have refused to acknowledge the surrender signal and remain hostile. And whilst we’ve decoded most of their cloaking technology, they still have something in place which is preventing the IMTel from encompassing the entire planet. This is unfortunately not our main concern. Several days ago, one of our frigates detected a Ghar battlefleet in an adjoining system.”