A warning light pulsated on her screen. “Captain, our fold generator was hit before the jump.”
Mubutai looked at her for a long moment. “Engineering? What is the status of the fold generator?”
A voice came back from a speaker above Alicia’s head. “The generator is running nominally, Captain. But there are fluctuations in the control algorithms. We’ll nail it down, sir.”
Alicia sat back in her chair and fought tears. Her first thoughts were of her family on Eden, but she compartmentalized them until there was a chance that she could face her feelings alone. Later during her first watch, the only tears she would cry came. Her family on Eden wouldn’t likely survive a full Grey assault. The Greys didn’t take prisoners, and they never bothered to trade in humankind. Nothing mattered now but her own survival. There would be no one there if she ever returned. She sniffled for a moment and turned back to the console. In this business you’re rich or dead, Mubutai’d told her once after their daily exercise. No matter what happened, she would survive, even if it meant sacrificing everything she’d ever known. Emotions buried and resolve strengthened somewhat, she snapped to her duties on the watch. She and her watch would perform to perfection every time she held the bridge. She nodded to herself, looking at the bridge and the detailed screens showing the five-kilometer-long, billion-ton starship. This was her home now. Her only home.
No one was going to take it from her.
* * * * *
Forty-Six
Rain fell from a bright clear sky, cold and hard as it lashed across Tally’s shoulders, stinging impacts like a thousand accusations. Surrounded by azure brightness how could it be raining? And from where? Dancing through a field of golden flowers, her bare feet sliding effortlessly through the soft green stalks and spinning the thick air with sweet pollen, she danced to a song she hummed from the depths of memory. Warm smoky nights surrounded by the layered perfection of a jazz trio. The rain falling harder now, reminding her of every emotion, every touch, every feeling they’d shared. The sun felt like the vacuum of space on her face. The rain fell harder, and she could taste the brine on her lips from the tears that fell from the sky.
I love you Tally. Won’t you love me?
Mairin, you know I can’t now. You’re dead for all I know.
I am always here, cariad. And you know that I will be.
Please, Mairin. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for this to happen. I wouldn’t be here except you couldn’t give me a child.
I know, Tally. I know.
The sheets were damp on Tallenaara’s side of the bed as she sat up, feeling the cool air bringing gooseflesh to her back. Andrew’s side of the bed was dry and cold. Empty. The door to the stateroom was closed with a thin sliver of white light at its base. Not bothering to look for the time or boot up her neural connection, Tally padded to the door and opened it slowly.
“I was trying not to wake you,” Andrew said without looking up from a tablet. “But I couldn’t sit in the dark without wanting another glass of wine and staring out the viewport.” Foldspace melted past the windows in vibrant blues and greens. Supposedly a patient observer could occasionally see a star streak across the view, but they’d not seen one yet. Tally wondered if anyone had ever gone mad from simply staring at the ever-changing, addicting kaleidoscope of foldspace.
“What are you working on?”
Andrew shrugged. “Reports. Trying to keep the North American Territories building vertical farms, that sort of thing.”
She walked over to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Come back to bed, Andy. That will wait until the morning.”
“It is morning.” He chuckled and then looked up to the ceiling, his face upside down to hers. His smile faded. “What am I going to find at Libretto, Tally?”
Tally blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I wish I knew.” Andrew sighed. “I just cannot shake the feeling that I’m walking into a situation that I’m unprepared for. A situation that Earth itself isn’t prepared for. I don’t have the slightest clue why the Tueg are adamant that this discussion take place on Libretto, do you?”
“I don’t know either, Andy.” Tally looked out the portal again. “Have you thought that the Tueg simply want you away from Earth?”
“Then why did we have to meet on the Moon?”
Tally shrugged. “Maybe they tried there but you and the delegation were too distracted.”
“Distracted? You mean having to fight a war while convincing one of your key allies to stay in the war?”
There was defensiveness in his voice, an accusation being avoided. “You think this has something to do with me?”
“No,” Andrew closed his eyes. “But, what if it has something to do with Styrah?”
“And you think it does?” How much does he know? Or suspect?
“I don’t know.” Andrew looked up at her. “Damn it, Tally. I don’t know what to think anymore. Is there anything that the Tueg and the Styrah don’t agree on?”
“Not officially, no.”
“What does that mean?” Andrew snapped.
“Easy, Andy.” Tally let out a long, slow breath. “Tuegs and Styrahi do not agree on the imprinting of humans. The Tueg say that trying to imprint citizens with past memories and experiences will have a negative effect on our society. They argue that those imprinted values and beliefs will set back our cultural and societal development. Essentially, that those few hundred imprints humans have initiated are abominations who should have remained dead.” She thought about Mairin for a split second and almost winced.
“But those imprints are helping us turn the tide of this war.”
Tally nodded. “And is that a product of their imprints, or by the application of technology?”
“Both,” Andrew nodded. “I see what you’re getting at.”
“And that is?”
“That human imprints are causing the Tueg issues because imprints are barbarous and uncouth. Something like that?”
“You forgot that they should have stayed dead. The Tueg clearly define the worlds of life and death, Andy.”
He laughed. “And the rest of us don’t?”
“Not if you count imprinting,” Tally said. Styrahi scientists had perfected the memory transfer hundreds of years before, and took the planet from a murderous, war enthralled race to peace in three generations. The idea that humans could be retrained from docile pacifists to hardened warriors simply by imprinting was far-fetched at best. Extreme followers of antiquated religions were capable of violence on behalf of their beliefs. The simple fact was that most of the human race simply wanted to be left alone with whatever particular distraction mattered most. Humans were generally far too lazy and self-absorbed to become brutal warriors in the space of a few generations. If that were the goal of sharing imprinting with humans, Styrahi would have to wait hundreds of years before Earth nearly tore itself apart again.
Andrew closed his eyes for a long moment then looked up and smiled. Tally knew that smile. The conversation was over. “What are you doing up? Another dream?”
Tally nodded. “I was dancing in the rain again.”
“Just as lucid and real as the others?” Andrew rotated his head slightly to brush her left forearm.
She snorted. “Surprised I wasn’t soaking wet or in the shower when I woke up.” She rubbed his shoulders lightly. They’d discussed the dreams over the past few months. Seen psychotherapists and doctors, to no avail. There was nothing wrong with her, or so they said. She knew better. The dreams always centered on something she’d only felt when she’d been with Mairin. As much as she wanted to talk about it, to share the experience and make sense of it, she kept it to herself. No one would understand, especially Andrew. Talking about it would only bring questions that she couldn’t fully answer without bringing the Styrahi Council into question.
“You keep rubbing my shoulders and I’ll be asleep in a minute.”
“Then come to bed.” Tally smiled down
at him. He smiled back, and her hearts jumped. I love him, she thought with conviction, and as much as I love him, I loved her. She led her husband-to-be by the hand to their bedroom, without a word. They curled warmly around each other as sleep gently took their hands and led them away, Tally praying for rain.
* * * * *
Forty-Seven
Sergeant Major Jack Trevayne did not shuffle to attention with the parade ground precision of those around him. Unlike the crowd, he let his eyes follow the Division Commander’s entrance with barely contained amusement. Somebody has watched too many John Wayne movies, Trevayne thought and cleared his throat to avoid smiling. Never mind that General Talvio was Swedish and could most likely name no more than five movies John Wayne filmed, the shuffling, drawling, spitting cowboy schtick was thickly applied, and for some strange reason, revered by those around him. Talvio could be funny and engaging and aloof and distinctly unprofessional, all at the same time. The last time he’d seen military bearing in the mirror might have been his last day at the Terran Academy some twenty years ago. Since then, well, he’d more than likely regressed to this comical state. No wonder this division is so fucked up, Trevayne thought.
“At ease,” General Talvio drawled, like he’d been raised somewhere south of Stockholm. Trevayne sat and cleared his throat again. He might have been catching something. “Y’all take your seats now.”
For a moment Talvio stood tall in the center of the room and slicked his longer than regulation hair back from his forehead and smiled a loose, gaping grin. “How’s everybody doing today? Helluva operation we ran down there on Ashland.” There was an enthusiastic chorus of grunts and whistles typical of leaders eager to please their rating official. “Now, we’re gonna do something that used to be called an after-action review. We’re gonna talk about sections of the battle, what happened, what should’ve happened, and how we can make it better for next time. ‘Cause we know there’s gonna be a next time, right? Them damned Greys will make sure of that!”
Talvio sat at the head of the mahogany conference tables arranged, not coincidentally, in a horseshoe-shaped formation, and filled his lip with chewing tobacco. “Y’all can chew if you wanna.” All around Trevayne, men reached into their uniforms and gladly followed the lead of the division commander. Trevayne managed to keep a straight face.
“You want some?” A lieutenant Trevayne had never met filled his lip and offered the tin can.
Trevayne shook his head and smiled at the young lieutenant losing the battle to keep his face from turning green. “You go ahead, sir.” He turned back to Talvio holding court with his regimental commanders. The engineers, artillery, maneuver, logisticians, and medicos were present. At the far end from Trevayne, a lone woman sat, clearly out of place. Her short brown hair framed her face, blue eyes fixed respectfully on Talvio and her countenance completely blank. The sabers of cavalry glinted on the pointed collar of her uniform tunic. For a reason he couldn’t name other than intuition, Sergeant Major Jack Trevayne liked the division cavalry troop commander. He’d heard she was an imprint too, but he’d never been able to talk with her about it. She certainly carried herself like one.
“Let’s get started, people.” Talvio glared around the room, silencing the lieutenants who covered smiles and tried to act their age. Some of the captains and majors, too, Trevayne thought. God save me from these assholes.
“We can say that the action on Ashland was successful. We finally had a battle where we gave a little better than we got. Across the division we lost a total of seventy-four tactical vehicles and roughly two hundred soldiers.” Trevayne cleared his throat at the pronunciation of soldiers as “sojers.” “We slagged an estimated four hundred thirty Grey vehicles. No telling how many casualties them little grey bastards suffered. That ain’t important. We need to talk about a few things, but most importantly...and I want a policy and procedure published on this immediately, you staff weenies...we tried to push out our scouts and perform a passage of lines of Styrahi pathfinders that turned into a huge goatfuck.”
Talvio spat loudly into the coffee mug that he’d been drinking out of just a moment before, Trevayne was sure, and glared down the table at Trevayne’s commander, Colonel Bob Coffey. “Bob? Why don’t you tell me what the fuck happened and why you fucked up my cavalry passing them Barbies through?”
The room tittered at the expressly forbidden derogatory term for the Styrah. Trevayne shook his head and smiled at the stupidity around him. He looked up and saw Captain Shields clinch her jaw shut as a ripple of contained rage crossed her face. Talvio leaned forward to glare at Coffey and continued. “Bob? Tell me what the fuck happened and why you ordered the cav to kill those people without authorization.”
Coffey cleared his throat in a very silent room. He looked up at Talvio and began to speak in slow, measured words. “Sir, with respect. The division’s intelligence network very clearly identified the four vehicles that approached through the Big Ditch as being targets. Whether they were Grey vehicles or captured allied vehicles was unknown, but the G2 clearly identified them as targets.”
Talvio looked back to his staff. “That true, Brooksy?”
A short and stocky full bird colonel stood and shook his head. “Not entirely, sir. Those transmissions were course of action gameplay between my staff and the regimental intelligence officers. We had a confirmation of a Styrahi team operating in our AO and were prepared to pass them through the lines of whatever unit they intersected. In this case, they crossed at the cavalry’s forward screen point.” Trevayne rubbed his chin. Not knowing the division had the responsibility for an area of operations that essentially encompassed the entire dayside of Ashland had been a blessing at the time. How in the hell did they honestly expect one division to cover that kind of terrain?
“Thanks, Colonel Brooks. You just kept your job.” Talvio grinned, spat, and turned back to Coffey. “Speculation, Bob? You were listening into the division intelligence net, right?”
“Yes, sir. It’s SOP for my subordinate commanders.”
“To monitor my operations and intelligence net? For what purpose?” Talvio cupped his chin in a hand and raised his eyebrows. “That’s my damn net, Bob. You’ve got your own.”
“We monitor your net to act upon the best possible timely intelligence,” Coffey said. “That’s part of your guidance, sir. I can quote you the exact reference if you’d like.”
Talvio glared. “Not necessary, Colonel. Just tell me why you told Captain Shields and her troopers to engage and destroy those vehicles without better intelligence?”
Coffey glanced at Shields. “Sir, I was concerned Captain Shields and her tanks would attempt to develop the situation to a point that would provide the Grey vehicles an opportunity to penetrate our lines.”
“So you jammed the receivers on my vehicles from the Styrahi frequency? So I couldn’t attempt to talk to them?” Captain Shields was more professional in her delivery than either of her superiors. Trevayne wondered how many of these assholes caught it.
“I jammed you to keep you from talking to them. A passage of lines is supposed to be a stealthy operation!” Coffey replied.
“Like hell,” Shields said. “You blocked my communications and then ordered me to kill those vehicles without developing the situation at all! And by doing so, you cost me eight damned good troopers!”
“Soldiers,” Coffey snapped. “Will you stop with this fucking cavalry shit? It’s not even recognized by the Terran Defense Force!”
Talvio snapped his fingers. “It’s recognized by me, Bob. You got that?”
Score one for Captain Shields, Trevayne thought.
“Yes, sir,” Coffey replied. “Sir, my order to Captain Shields was meant to save my regiment from engagement and not give away our position to the enemy in a premature fashion.”
Shields snorted. “For God’s sake! You were dug in on the wrong side of a slope! The enemy could have seen you from orbit, sir.”
Coffey folded his hands on
the table. “The element of surprise has long been a friend of the successful commander, sir. I wanted to maintain that as long as possible.”
“At the cost of some of our allies?” Shields said.
Talvio raised his palm with fingers splayed. “Stop. Point taken, Bob. Captain Shields, what happened when them vehicles approached your passage point?”
Shields took a breath and replied. “Sir, as the vehicles came to the passage point, I determined the lead vehicle was broadcasting in the clear on friendly frequencies that it was the lone friendly vehicle. The vehicles were too far away to see that the trailing vehicles were firing on the leader until it was too late. The trailing vehicles engaged and destroyed my vehicles at the passage point. Both vehicles were total losses, eight men killed. My Interface confirmed the lead vehicle was friendly just as one of my vehicles destroyed it. I gave the order to dispatch the remaining vehicles, which we did in less than fifteen seconds. At that point, the passage point was compromised, and I fell back to my designated supplemental position to await further orders.”
“And did them orders come?” Talvio spat again.
“No, sir. I was unaware that the regimental commander gave a movement order until we determined that two nuclear rounds were inbound to our position.” Shields looked at Coffey. “I was to understand later that those rounds were called in by Colonel Coffey on his position as he pulled the regiment out. A movement order never came to me or my troopers.”
“That true, Bob?”
Coffey sputtered. “I transmitted on the cavalry frequency. It’s in the mission logs.”
“I’ve consulted those logs,” Shields said. “You used a frequency that was six hours old, sir.”
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