by Marko Kloos
Agent Green shakes his head, a mildly irritated look on his face. Then he picks up his data pad again and taps the screen.
“Have the master-at-arms find and unlock Staff Sergeant Grayson’s berth. Secure the data module from his armor and report back to the docking collar as soon as complete. And secure the SRA prisoner.”
“He’s not a POW,” I interject. “He’s the liaison for the Alliance task force we joined up with in Fomalhaut. I thought you debriefed the skipper?”
“And I thought you were done talking without JAG counsel,” Agent Green says.
“We need the Russian to get back through the Alliance node for Fomalhaut,” I say. “He has the access code.”
“This ship is going precisely nowhere right now, Sergeant. Once we have untangled the personnel situation, Indianapolis is going to join the defense of Earth. You may have noticed that we’re down a few ships right now.”
“If we don’t go back to Fomalhaut, thirty thousand people are going to die,” I say. “They’re waiting for us to get back and tell them the way home. It’s what we came back for. We’re the scouting mission for a twenty-ship task force. They can’t make the transition blind without our intel. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“If you go back to Fomalhaut, billions are going to die,” Agent Green replies. “You’d never make it anyway. It’s amazing that you made it all the way here to begin with.” He pushes the chair back from the table and looks at Major Carter. “Let’s gather our things and get off this bucket. Call the SPs in to take Sergeant Grayson into custody for now.”
I don’t know why, but they will not let us leave, and they sure as hell won’t let me get off the ship and talk to Halley or anyone else. For some reason, they want to keep us all quiet. If they replace the command crew and take the ship, we all risked our lives for nothing, and Sergeant Fallon and everyone on New Svalbard are going to be dead in a few months.
I look at Agent Green, who returns my glance with a slight, self-assured smile that makes me instantly furious. Whatever his priorities are, he couldn’t care less that my friends are going to die if he gets his way. If I am about to get locked in a brig for the rest of humanity’s final chapter, I’ll at least get a last lick in, to wipe that smirk off this bureaucrat’s face. It’s not like I have much to lose anymore.
The bubble of barely contained rage that has been floating just below the surface of my consciousness pops, and I let the anger take over. I seize my PDP and throw it at Agent Green. He sees it coming and raises his data pad to deflect my throw, but he’s just a fraction of a second too late. The hard polymer shell of my loaner PDP hits him in the face, right on the bridge of his nose. He yelps and drops his data pad, which lands on the table with a dull clatter.
The major is already out of his seat when I lunge across the table. I grab the front of his uniform tunic and pull hard. He pulls back with force to resist getting pulled across the table. I give it half a second and then turn the pull into a push, letting go of his uniform and shoving him against the chest with both hands. He flies back and stumbles to the floor. The serving counter is too close behind him for clearance, and he crashes into it, arms and legs flailing.
“SP detail to the NCO mess,” Agent Green shouts. The blood is pouring freely from his nose. He backs away when I come around the table. When I am close enough for contact, he hauls off and shoots a surprisingly competent left straight against my cheekbone. I am so full of anger and adrenaline that I barely register the hit. I return the favor with a left straight of my own, which he blocks with his lower arm. Then I follow up with a right cross, and I put all my weight and force behind it. My fist hits him on the nose, almost exactly in the same spot my PDP nailed him just a moment ago. He collapses with a strangled-sounding little grunt.
Behind me, I hear the unmistakable sound of a pistol’s slide cycling and slamming home. I turn around to see Major Carter pointing a gun at me from his slightly crumpled position on the floor. He is aiming with one hand. The muzzle of the pistol wavers more than just a little, but at this range, he doesn’t have to be good, just lucky, and there are thirty rounds in his magazine.
“Move another centimeter,” he says. “Please.”
I freeze in place and hold my hands away from my body. Then I turn sideways, very slowly, until I offer him the smallest possible target.
“You are a logistics guy,” I say. “Carrying with an empty chamber.”
Behind us, the entrance hatch of the NCO mess slams open, and four civilian SPs pile into the room, PDWs at low ready. To my right, Special Agent Green sits up with a groan. He has his hand over his face, and there’s blood seeping out from between his fingers.
“Put this asshole in cuffs,” he says, his voice muffled.
With five guns pointed at me, I do my best to impersonate a piece of furniture. The SPs surround me, and one of them aims his PDW at my head.
“Hands behind your back. You make a move, I’ll hose you down.”
I do as instructed and put my hands behind my back. Immediately, someone else grabs me by the uniform and yanks me back roughly. Then I feel the hard plastic of a set of flex cuffs closing around my wrists.
Agent Green gets up from the deck and steadies himself. He wipes the blood out of his face with the back of his hand. The front of his loaner overalls is stained with red splotches. The high collar of his suit underneath has blood spatters on it as well. He looks at me with narrow eyes. Then he walks up to where the SPs are tightening the cuffs and patting me down. Without a word, he hauls off and punches me in the face, a solid right cross that cracks into my cheekbone and makes me see stars. My knees buckle, but the SPs on either side of me keep me from falling down. Agent Green takes a step back and observes me as I sway. The side of my face is numb, but I know that the numbness will turn into throbbing pain in a few moments.
“Toughest guy on the block, huh?” I say.
He doesn’t even try to make his next shot a surprise. It’s a hard punch thrown wide from the shoulder, and his fist slams into the bridge of my nose, right in the spot where I hit him just a few moments ago. This time, my vision goes red, then black. The sudden sharp pain between my eyes tells me that my nose is broken. I fall backwards, and the SPs just let go of my arms and let me crash to the deck. Warm blood runs down my upper lip and then into my mouth, and I cough. Agent Green has a good, solid punch for a bureaucrat.
“Now we’re even,” he says to me. I open my eyes and look up at him. He wipes his own bloody nose on the sleeve of his overalls, leaving a dark red streak on the fabric.
“Take Staff Sergeant Grayson out of here and move him to the detention area on Foxtrot concourse. If he tries any tough-guy shit, shoot him in the spine and leave him for the cleanup robots.”
The SPs march me through Indy’s corridors and over to the docking collar. Two of them are behind me, weapons across their chests, and two are on either side of me, guiding me by the shoulders. When we reach the main airlock, Staff Sergeant Philbrick and Corporal DeLuca aren’t at their posts anymore. Instead, there’s a pair of SPs guarding Indy’s side of the docking collar.
When we pass through Indy’s main airlock and step out into the flexible collar connecting us to the station, it occurs to me that I may never step onto a spaceship again. I don’t have any personal gear left in my berth, but I’ve lived and fought with the people on that ship for a few tense months now, and not being able to say good-bye to them as I get hauled off Indy like a bag of refuse hurts a lot more than the broken nose or the sore and puffy cheekbone.
The corridors of Foxtrot concourse are nearly deserted. There are a few civilian techs scurrying about, but they give us wide berths. I’ve never seen a space station this empty. The impression is compounded by the fact that Independence is bigger and roomier than Gateway, which is always packed to the bulkheads with military personnel and materials in transit. Of all the sights I’ve seen since the Lankies arrived in the solar system, seeing one of the NAC’s two major s
pace hubs almost devoid of people is possibly the most apocalyptic.
The civilian security police march me down the length of Foxtrot concourse, which is a long hike down the central corridor. At the main junction that connects the concourse to the central part of the station, there’s a security booth next to a wide airlock. The lead cop swipes his security tag at the door. Inside, there’s a duty desk and two more civilian police, both in regular black police fatigues with sidearms on their duty belts.
The SPs pat me down again. One of them runs a scanner up and down my body.
“Clean. Give the guy something for his nose. He’ll bleed all over the detention unit.”
One of the SPs uncuffs me, then another behind the desk produces a rolled-up bandage pad and tosses it over to me. I catch it and press it against my nose. The blood on my face is fairly well clotted now, and I do my best to clean some of the sticky mess, with limited success. The bridge of my nose hurts like hell, and I have a massive headache now, but I don’t want to ask the SPs for pain meds. I don’t want to ask them for any favors at all. They remind me too much of the casually brutal riot cops I met last time I went down to Earth a few months ago.
“I’m going to take the cuffs off,” the cop to my right says. “No funny shit, or that bloody nose will be the least of your problems today. Understood?”
“Understood,” I say.
The cop releases the flex cuffs, which were tight enough on my wrists to leave deep red marks.
“This way,” he says. “Nice and easy.”
He leads me to a door at the back of the security station and opens it with his ID tag. We walk through the door into a detention berth. It’s a room maybe five meters wide and long, with stainless steel benches along the walls that are bolted to the floor. There’s a toilet in the corner of the room, and a holoscreen high up on one wall near the ceiling. It’s showing Network news with the sound muted.
“Have a seat and relax for a little while until the MPs come and pick you up.”
“Relax,” I say. The wad of bandage I’m pressing against my face is now tinted in various shades of red, and my head hurts enough to make my eyes water. “That’s just what I’ll do. Thanks.”
The cop leaves the room and closes the door behind him. I walk over to one of the benches lining the walls and lie down on it. I’ve not been in a detention cell in five years of service, but from the look of things, I’m going to have to get used to this sort of environment.
I close my eyes and try to ignore the pain enough to take a nap, without great success.
A little while later, the door of the detention berth opens again. I sit up, expecting the MP detail that will haul me off to the shuttle down to the fleet brig in Norfolk. But the newcomers aren’t military police. The civvie cop walks in, followed by Dmitry and Colonel Campbell.
“Have a seat, gentlemen,” the cop says.
Colonel Campbell nods at me and sits down on the bench nearby.
Dmitry rubs his wrists and looks around the room. Then he looks at me and shakes his head slightly. “Andrew, my friend,” he says. “You look like garbage. Have you had not-good ideas again?”
“Iz ognya da v polymya,” I agree.
CHAPTER 11
“Why did you have to go and pick a fight with those CSS goons?” Colonel Campbell asks.
I’m lying down on my bench again because it’s easier to keep the blood in my head that way. Dmitry is sitting leaned back against the stark white wall of the detention berth, arms folded, watching the muted Network screen with a slightly bored expression. Colonel Campbell is pacing around in what little space there is, hands in the pockets of his CDU fatigues.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I guess since they were hauling me off to the brig anyway, I figured I ought to make it worth my while.”
“I guess in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter much. You’re just lucky they didn’t stitch you with fléchettes.”
“That major was about five pounds of trigger pull away from it,” I say. “Couldn’t help myself. Told the CSS agent that we had to go back to Fomalhaut, or thirty thousand people are going to bite it. And he just shrugs and goes, ‘Too bad.’ ”
I sit up with a grunt and look at the bandage in my hand. At least my nose has stopped bleeding, but the headache is still there.
“They’re not going to let us leave,” I say.
“Oh, I know,” Colonel Campbell says. “I have been relieved of command. They’re going to replace the department heads and senior personnel, and then they’re going to attach Indy to what’s left of the fleet here around Earth.”
“That’s nuts. Indy’s damaged. She’s not going to make fuck-all of a difference when the Lankies come calling. No offense, Colonel.”
“None taken. And you’re right. She needs a month in the fleet yard and six weeks of shore leave for the crew to get back into fighting shape.”
He straightens out his uniform tunic and sits down across from me.
“None of this is right,” he says. “You don’t send civvie cops to arrest mutineers. You send military police. What business does a CSS agent have on a warship? And chucking Sergeant Chistyakov here into the brig with us? That’s a straight-up treaty violation. He should have been put on a shuttle and ferried over to Unity Station.”
“That major who was with the CSS agent wasn’t right, either,” I say. “No unit patches. No specialty badge. Just a name tag and a pair of rank sleeves.”
“I noticed that,” Colonel Campbell says. “Shit ain’t right. Hasn’t been since we made contact with that picket force. They’ve locked out all comms on Indy. Full EMCON. We can only talk with the station via hard line.”
“That explains why my PDP couldn’t connect to MilNet.” I want to throw away the blood-soaked bandage roll in my hand, but there’s no trash container here in the lockup, so I reluctantly hold on to it.
“They’re keeping a lid on us,” the colonel concludes. “Making sure we don’t talk to anyone.”
“About what? Fomalhaut? Or Mars? You think they’re trying to keep Mars a secret?”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” he says. “Event of that magnitude, that close to Earth? There’s people calling their relatives on Mars every day. They probably knew about the invasion down on Earth about twelve and a half minutes after the first Lanky ship showed up in Mars orbit.”
“So why keep us isolated?”
“Beats me,” Colonel Campbell says. “But if Indy doesn’t get to leave in the next day or three and hightail it back to Fomalhaut . . .”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he means. Even without the Lankies, the colonists and soldiers crammed onto the little ice moon won’t live through the coming hard winter. I was hungry a lot when I grew up, and there’s very little you won’t do for some extra calories when the hunger is gnawing at the back of your rib cage. I know that I’d rather go out fighting the Lankies than by wasting away in an underground city while the temperature outside is low enough to shock-freeze exposed skin instantly.
“You want to make breakout, perhaps?” Dmitry says sleepily from his corner. “Might be next un-good idea you have. Maybe this time you can get bullet wound.”
“I’m not fighting a bunch of armed cops hand to hand,” I say. “But it’s not me we need to get back to Indy. It’s you.”
Dmitry raises an eyebrow and tears his attention away from the Network screen. “How is this?”
“Without the access code for the Alliance node, Indy can’t go back through to Fomalhaut. They sure as hell can’t use the Commonwealth node. We gotta go back the way we came.”
“Where is your armor, Sergeant Chistyakov?” Colonel Campbell asks.
“Is in berth, on spy ship of yours. They come take me off, do not ask about armor. I decide not to tell them.”
“If they remember to ask, tell them we gave you one of our vacsuits for the trip,” Colonel Campbell says. “Just in case.”
“In case
of what?” I ask. “Major Renner stealing Indy out of the dock and making the run back to Fomalhaut by herself?”
Colonel Campbell leans back with a sigh and stretches his legs.
“They’re replacing the whole command crew,” he says. “Major Renner is just running the boat until they hand it over to a new skipper and XO. Indy isn’t going anywhere right now.”
He shrugs and flashes a brief smile, which makes the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes look a little craggy in the harsh LED light from overhead.
“But you never know what kind of weird shit can happen in a hurry, Mr. Grayson.”
We don’t have to wait long for our pickup. Not thirty minutes after Colonel Campbell and Dmitry join me in the detention berth, the door opens again, and one of the cops sticks his head into the room.
“Get up,” he says. “Military police is here to pick you up.”
We stand up as instructed. Dmitry yawns and stretches. He still looks like our predicament is boring him to tears, but I can tell that he is sizing up the cop in the door with a quick glance. Colonel Campbell just looks pissed off.
The cop in the door steps out of the way, and four MPs walk into the room. One stands by the door, hand on his holstered sidearm. The other three each step up to one of us.
“Let’s go, folks,” the MP by the door says. His rank sleeves identify him as a sergeant. The other MPs are a corporal and two privates first class.
“I’m not ‘folks,’ ” Colonel Campbell says. “I’m a colonel and the captain of a fleet ship. I don’t give a shit who sent you or where you are taking us, but you will address me as sir.” He gestures at Dmitry and me. “For that matter, every one of us outranks every one of you.”
“You know rank means nothing in a detention berth,” the MP sergeant replies. “Sir,” he adds after a moment.
