“Well, you’d better get there quickly. It was almost gone last time I looked.”
“OK, thanks, sir. Maybe I’d better grab mine now,” she said, taking her glass with her and wandering back into the banquet room. Several small groups of Marines were chatting, but she bypassed them, walking up to the head table. The cake itself was gone, but there were four pieces left on plates. Esther grabbed one, looking for a fork. But whoever had left out the last four pieces had neglected utensils. No one was looking at her, so with a shrug, she picked it up with her fingers and took half of it in with one bite. It was actually pretty good, and she finished it off with another bite, then licked the frosting off her fingers.
“Join, us, Captain,” a lieutenant colonel from one of the small groups said as she started for the cash bar.
She glanced at her almost empty glass, but she dutifully obeyed and joined the group. The lieutenant colonel had his wife with him, one of the few spouses at the ball, and she was out to kill with a long live-cloth gown that was cut perfectly for her figure. Esther stared as the colors shifted seeming in random patterns, but it didn’t take long for her to realize that the shifts were coordinated with her make-up. This wasn’t fashion—it was choreography.
Each of the Marines seemed to know her—not that she was surprised. Very few Marines sported two Navy Crosses. But for once, no one seemed to pay much attention to her lineage. She was just another Marine on the Marine Corps’ birthday. It was rather refreshing, and Esther quickly felt part of the group. The six Marines worked in small arms procurement, and from their conversations, it seemed like their jobs were actual, full-time jobs, not like the Marines in Esther’s office. And as a grunt, Esther was frankly interested in what they were doing for the next improvement for the venerable M99. She forgot about the drink in her hand, and when the group was kicked out of the banquet room, they took over a table at the restaurant’s bar.
To her surprise, when offered a drink, she asked for a mint tea instead of another single malt. Surprised and pleased. She knew she’d been boozing too much, and refusing now gave her a tiny sense of empowerment.
It wasn’t just the six Marines in the group. Holly, the lieutenant colonel’s wife, was a research Ph.D., studying something she deftly avoided mentioning when asked. She was the personable one of the couple, and she and Esther hit it off, talking about everything under the sun.
The group broke off at midnight. Holly and her husband had to get home to their kids, but she gave Esther her number and made her promise to meet up sometime. With a few last happy birthdays, Esther found herself alone. Two Marines were in deep conversation at a table in the corner, and Esther got the vibe that three would be a crowd. She considered getting a nightcap, but for the first time since shortly after she’d arrived on Mars, she didn’t really want one. She was in a good mood, and she didn’t want the night to end, but there wasn’t much else going on, so she turned to leave. She could go back and make a few birthday calls, starting with Noah and General Simone. It was the day after for the general, but Noah still had a couple of hours left.
“Happy birthday, Captain Lysander,” an older man said from his seat by the door.
“Uh . . . thank you, sir,” Esther said, wracking her brain to try and remember who the man might be.
Nicely turned out, he was probably in his seventies or so, and although he had the tiniest accent that Esther couldn’t place, she could sense that he knew her.
“Can I buy you one last birthday drink?” he asked.
Is he coming on to me? Really?
“I don’t think so, sir. I’m done for the night.”
He pushed a glass forward, and Esther could tell it was mint tea.
“Please, Captain, humor an old friend.”
“I’m sorry sir, but do I know you?”
“Forgive me, Captain. How rude of me. My name is Titus Pohlmeyer,” he said, obviously looking at her for any hint of recognition.
She shook her head.
The man sighed, then said, “I was a friend of your father’s. I was hoping he might have mentioned me to you.”
“No, sir, he didn’t.”
“Too bad. That would have made things easier. But please, give me five minutes,” he said, hand out to the other chair at the table.
Esther hesitated. People regularly came to her saying they knew her father. She was sure many of them were lying and had ulterior motives. Something about this man spoke the truth to her, however. She took the chair and sat down.
She ignored the tea and asked, “So what do you want?”
“Pretty direct, Captain. Not much like your father, at least when I met him.”
“And when was that?”
“When he was a major. On New Mumbai.”
In the Confederation?
Suddenly, his slight accent made sense. Esther moved back a few centimeters as if she could distance herself from the man.
“And how did you know him?” she asked, almost not wanting to know.
“We were friends, I’d like to say. We respected each other.”
“And what do you want with me?”
“Like I said, you are so direct. But it’s standing you in good stead. You’ve done well in your career, and I don’t just mean your two Navy Crosses. Your current position, for example. And I have to say, Copia 2? Now that was just like your father would have done.”
Esther stood up, hitting the table with her hip and knocking over her glass of tea.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you think happened on wherever this Copia 2 is, but I’m leaving, and I suggest you do, too.”
“Please, please, Captain. I’m not here for anything nefarious. I’m just here to offer you the same thing I offered your father, something he accepted.”
Esther stopped, her mind warring with itself. This man was Confederation, and while the two governments were allies, he was obvious an agent of some sort. She should notify the Fourth Ministry and have the man arrested. But what if her father had been working with them? She didn’t want to know, but she had to know.
“And just what is that?” she asked, steel in her voice.
“Nothing more than an open line of communication. It might not ever be used, but better to have it and not use it than need it and not have it.”
“And did my father ever make use of this, this line of communication?”
“It is possible that he did,” the man said calmly. “But I can assure you that it was in the interests of the Federation.”
Esther paused. There had been rumors that the Confederation had been involved much deeper in the Evolution than had been officially released. Even her father’s escape from the first minister’s clutches was rumored to have been either conducted, or at least assisted, by Confederation operatives.
She stared at the man, trying to see the truth in his eyes. She saw nothing but an older gentlemen, polite and perfectly normal. But if he was some sort of operative, that was how he would present himself.
“Why me? I’m just a captain.”
“And your father was just a major. But like him, we saw something in you. He rose to a position of power, and you could very well do the same thing.”
Esther didn’t know how to take that. It was a compliment, of course, but this was a representative of a foreign government, and Esther was a Federation citizen, a Marine. Her loyalties were to completely to the Federation.
She was just about to turn away and stalk off when he said, “Captain, I’m asking nothing of you other than to take this number.” He pushed an old-fashioned business card across the table towards her. “If there is ever a time in the future when you think it would benefit the Federation to talk to us, then this is your way.”
“And if I never do that?”
“Then we can rejoice that there never was a need.”
“Am I the only one you are, well, reaching out to?”
He smiled and said, “Hardly. That wouldn’t make much sense. No,
we identify certain people who have the capability not only to rise within the Federation, but who are astute enough to know when communications would be in order.”
“And only with the Federation? What about the Brotherhood? What about the Alliance?”
“I’m afraid I’m not privy to any of that information.”
So, he’s only the Fagin for the Federation.
Esther wanted to leave, to get out of there, but despite her common sense screaming at her, she somehow trusted the man. She was suddenly sure he had a hand in her father escaping the first minister, and she was sure the rumors about the Confederation and the Evolution were true.
Slowly she reached out and picked up the card. On it was printed a simple number, like any other number that could be connected to throughout human space. She stared at it for a moment, then slid it into her blues’ breast pocket.
“I’m not saying I won’t trash this in the morning. And I promise you, I will never, ever, do anything against the Federation’s interest. I am not a traitor.”
“We wouldn’t have it any other way, Captain. Please believe me.”
“I doubt very much that we will ever speak again, sir.”
“I hope not.”
She nodded at him, stepped back from the table, then strode out the door. She knew she should report the contact. That was SOP. But what if he was on the up-and-up? Only a few moments in real time had passed, but she was sure he’d been telling the truth about her father, and her father had actually made use of the contact to help save the Federation.
It was up to her to initiate contact, if ever, and it was sure not going to be for anything that would be at odds with the Federation. She was not a traitor and never would be. She’d get a good night’s sleep before she decided what to do.
She felt as if the card was burning a hole in her pocket as she hailed an autocab to go home.
MARS
Chapter 9
Esther nodded at Helen-Lee and stepped into Mr. Byzantine’s office. To her surprise, a Marine colonel was sitting on the couch.
“Captain Lysander,” the colonel said, rising to his feet, hand out to shake, “I’m Colonel Soeryadjaya. It’s good to meet you.”
Esther waited, hearing the unspoken “and” in his voice. He didn’t disappoint her.
“I served with your father twice. The last time was aboard the Admiral Kravitch,” he told her, which caught her attention.”
Senior officers and staff meeting her tended to lead with their relationship with her father, but to be with him on the FS Admiral Kravitch was unique. The small Marine staff, along with the battalion on the Ballston Shore and part of the Navy crew, had been the ones to defy Admiral Kurae and the first minister, starting what turned out to be the Evolution. Normally, Esther tended to smile and gloss over the comments, but she’d love to pick the colonel’s brain sometime to get his view of what had really happened on that pivotal day in Federation history.
She took the colonel’s hand, wondering what he was doing there. Up to now, she’d never seen anyone in uniform in the building.
“Captain, we have another mission for you. Colonel Soeryadjaya will be in charge, so I’ll let him brief you.”
She shot the colonel another look. A Marine in charge? She liked the idea, but she wondered why. And who was he? He certainly was not one of her peers working in Logistics Command. Then it hit her. Of course, there couldn’t just be 19 Marines in this type of billet. There had to be more with various agencies.
“Thank you, Mr. Byzantine,” he said, then turning to Esther, “Have you heard of Kepler 9813-B?”
Esther racked her brain, sorting through the chaff. There were probably hundreds of thousands of Keplers, all designated since 2009, Old Reckoning, when the original Kepler satellite started cataloging stars and planets. Most of the viable planets in human’s interstellar neighborhood were subsequently renamed and colonized. The ones not yet terraformed or not high on the list of priorities were the ones that still kept the original Kepler designation to this day. If this planet still had a Kepler number, it couldn’t have been very important to humanity, Esther wasn’t surprised that she didn’t recognize the name.
“Fair enough,” the colonel said when she shrugged her shoulders. “Let me give you the skinny version. Kepler 9813 is an ultra-cool dwarf. Its previous claim to fame has been its life forms, which basically look like weird Earth fungus.
“Kepler 9813-B is tidally locked. As a dwarf, Kepler 9813’s gravity is so powerful that the gravitational gradient creates a synchronous rotation in the planet. So, as you know, the same side of the planet always faces its sun.”
Esther didn’t automatically know that, but she had no problem with the concept.
“This is not that rare of an occurrence, but usually, planets like this are blasted with too much solar radiation to allow for life. However, because Kepler 9813 is an ultra-cool dwarf, the radiation that hits the planet is in the habitable zone, but only along the rim between the day side and the night side. The reason I’m telling you this is simply to highlight that the world cannot really be terraformed. And while there are traces of O2 on the planet, the atmosphere is deadly to human life.”
“Let me guess, sir. You’re telling me this because the Marines have a mission on this planet.”
“Not the Marines. The Council. The Marines are merely the tools to be used.”
Esther nodded, acknowledging the legal difference, then waited for the colonel to continue. She couldn’t imagine why Marines would be needed on a planet like that, though.
“What is of interest to the Council is that Allied Biologicals have found a biological structure on the planet that has tremendous potential to humanity.”
“A biology that compliments ours? That’s . . .”
“Yes, it is,” the colonel said.
For the most part, alien life forms discovered so far were incompatible with human life. Capys could eat and survive on Earth food products, but most life seemed to be not only incompatible, but actively inimical with Earth life forms. If this fungus-life or whatever could benefit mankind, then the planet could be a potential windfall.
“Is Kepler 9813-B Federation?”
“We think so, but the Brotherhood has filed with the UAM that it is actually in their territory.”
“Interesting that they just filed that now,” Mr. Byzantine said, speaking up for the first time since the colonel had started his spiel.
“But if this fungus-thing has that sort of potential to help human life, then doesn’t the UAM have to step in?”
The colonel looked at Mr. Byzantine a moment as if checking to see if what he was going to say was allowed before saying, “Allied Biologicals has established a research center on the planet, and the UAM has not been so informed.”
“No license was issued?”
“No.”
“And if the Brotherhood just filed to take control over the planet, then they know something is up, right, sir?”
“Not just them. There is an unknown commercial entity in the system.”
“OK, sir, then why not send in the Navy to chase out the bad guys and put the FCDC on the planet.”
“Because doing so will require a response from the Brotherhood now that they’ve filed the claim. And we don’t want things to escalate.”
Esther thought it over a moment. It made sense. What didn’t make sense was why she was sitting here getting briefed on it.
“So that leads me to you, Captain Lysander. At the command of the Council, through the Second and Fourth Ministries, and with the full support of the First Ministry, you are going to lead a mission of Marines, FCDC troopers, and scientist-types to the station, both to ensure its security, and if that becomes untenable, to keep whatever has been discovered from falling into non-Federation hands.
“Sir?”
“You’ve been selected, Captain. You’ve got infantry and recon experience, you now work for the chairman, and no one will question your absence.”<
br />
Esther tried to take it all in. This was a crazy mission, she had to admit. Still, it had to beat another diplomatic meet and greet, although with a Brotherhood ship of the line there, maybe this would turn out to be karmic payback for her mission during Arrival’s Founding Day. Still, she was going back into the field, and that beat what she was doing now by a long shot. Her excitement level was already rising.
“Aye, aye, sir. Just tell me when and where, and I’m there with bells on.”
TARAWA
Chapter 10
“OK, Staff Sergeant, let’s take a look at you,” Esther muttered, swiping in Staff Sergeant Carlito Rapa’s MC-100.
As a fellow Navy Cross holder, she’d have known who the staff sergeant was even had he not been anointed “The Grey Death” by the press. His 52 kills on Florin-3, accomplished in two days and despite being seriously wounded, had been widely and intensely reported. But the MC-100 had every bit of data compiled on him from both during his service and prior, so she dutifully started going through it. Nicknamed “Bomba” within the Corps, his record was sterling, even before Florin-3. Esther knew that the SOP for choosing Marines for Level 1 (Spec) missions was to check the entire MC-100, but after two minutes, she shortcut the process, hitting the accept. If the staff sergeant wasn’t qualified, then she didn’t know who was.
Esther had spent the last 11 hours and counting going through the records of 34 Marine scout-snipers so far in order to select 16 of them for the mission. She had a few recon Marines she’d liked to have selected, but her ops orders were pretty specific in that all Marines needed to be snipers. She’d immediately tried to recruit the newly-promoted Staff Sergeant Bob Burnham, with whom she served on Elysium, but he’d just started the SNCO Academy, and pulling him out would set him back a year.
Esther's Story: Special Duty (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 4) Page 6
