by J E Loddon
“One,” I said. “Maybe two,” I pointed out morosely.
“Only one person has died today,” she replied.
“So it’s just a numbers game to you?” I asked her accusingly.
“No, it’s not a numbers game,” she hissed at me. “It’s not a game to me at all. But if we are gonna save our very race, then we need to think in terms of numbers. How many people would you sacrifice for one life? Two? The eleven you nearly sacrificed today by delaying our escape?”
My face reddened, and I could feel anger bubbling up.
“How about millions?” she asked. “Would you save one person at the expense of en entire planet?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” I retorted.
“No, Milo, I’m not,” she replied, sighing. “We all have to make hard decisions in this war. This squad, they risked their lives, because they judged that it was a reasonable gamble. That they had a chance of saving us,” she said. “Did you see any of them rushing out to try to save that girl?” she asked. “They’re a smart bunch of recruits. They’re able to judge a good risk from a bad. They saved five strangers, but left a fallen teammate behind. It can’t have been easy for them, but they made the right judgement.”
I tried to stop listening. I didn’t want to talk about it any more. Regardless of what she might say, how much logical sense it might make, I wasn’t able to think that way. You saw someone get hurt, you rushed to help. That was the way I’d been brought up, and that was what I was going to continue doing. It was easy to take the pragmatic view when it wasn’t you, or someone who you cared about getting left behind. But how would Liberty react if it was someone she cared about? I was in no doubt she wouldn’t go back for me, or anyone else on our team for that matter. But what about if it was someone she loved. If she even could love anyone, I thought bitterly. I unhooked my harness, and pulled across to another seat, away from Liberty. I could feel her stare burning through my back. She just didn’t understand, and I knew there was no way for me to make her.
I tried to hold back tears. Everything was just too much, and I couldn’t believe everything that had happened that day. It was a miracle that I was alive, but I wasn’t sure I deserved to be. I felt guilty for the hundredth time. I was already guilty because Chris had effectively signed his own death warrant following me up to this life of Hell. And I now was guilty because someone had directly risked their life to save mine, and had lost it as a result. One, and potentially two, if the other poor recruit didn’t make it. I didn’t know why I was trying to hold back the tears. I shouldn’t care if any of these people saw me crying. Still, I choked them back anyway. I closed my eyes, and just wished the world away.
“Hey.” A voice caught me off-guard, a little while later. I looked across to see Antonia sitting next to me. “How are you doing?” she asked me, genuine concern in her eyes.
“I’m not,” I replied. “Can you believe what happened?” I asked her.
“No.” she said, letting out a huge breath. “No, I cannot.”
“Why would she do that?” I asked her. “How could she physically restrain you from helping someone?” Antonia shook her head.
“She was just doing her job,” she said sadly.
“Her job?!” I asked indignantly. “Surely her job is to try to preserve the life of her fellow soldiers?” I said.
“No, that really isn’t her job,” Antonia pointed out. “Her job is to make the right decisions for the good of the mission.”
“The mission was over,” I pointed out. “We’d… well. You’d carried out the mission. And then some. We were just flying for ourselves by that point.”
“That’s not strictly true,” Antonia disagreed. “If we hadn’t made it off that planet, there’d have been no-one to tell the Division what we’d found there. We might have taken it out, but they still need to know that the enemy is present, and building. That they are active on that planet, in that area of space,” Antonia insisted. “Liberty made a judgement call,” she said.
“Well, it was certainly her judgement, yeah,” I replied.
“And it was the right decision,” Antonia said.
I sat bolt upright, and glared at her in shock. The right decision? How could she possibly think Liberty had made the right decision? She’s been ready to risk her life to help me save someone else's, and Liberty had stood in the way of that.
“You really believe that?” I asked in disbelief. “You? You’re towing the company line?”
“It’s not about the company line, Milo,” she said, shaking her head. “We have a responsibility. We can’t just follow our instincts. That’s what puts people’s lives in danger unnecessarily.”
“We don’t put anyone’s lives in danger unnecessarily,” I retorted. “The Division do.”
“Well, that’s a much more complicated issue,” she disagreed. “Is it fair? No. But someone has to do the job we’re doing. It might as well be us. Because if no-one does it, we’re all gonna be dead pretty soon anyway.” I just looked back at her, shaking my head in disbelief. “Look at it this way,” she said. “You didn’t save that recruits life today. You might still have saved Hamley’s, though.”
“Who’s Hamley?” I asked, confused.
“That’s his name,” she replied, nodding towards the treatment area. “If we’d gone to get Lainie’s body, dragged it on board the transport, delaying the extraction, who knows what would have happened,” she pointed out. “We might have been killed. The whole transport might have been blown up. Or with two casualties on board, the medics might have been overwhelmed and not been able to save either of them.”
“How do you know their names?” I asked her.
“I’ve been talking to them. You should try it. Talking to people. It helps,” she said. “Hamley’s family own a farm. He wants to make it through the war, and get home in time to take over the business,” she told me. “Lainie was a writer. She wrote poetry and books back home. She made a pencil on the ship, was keeping an account of her time as a recruit. She hoped it would shed some light on what happens to recruits when they get taken from their homes,” she said, blinking back tears. “It’ll never be finished now,” she said to herself quietly. “You should talk to them,” she insisted, giving me a thin smile.
“One of their teammates died saving us,” I said. “They might still lose another one. What can I possibly say to them? They must hate us.”
“They don’t hate us,” she told me. “Well, they don’t outwardly hate us, at least. I don’t know what they’re really thinking. But they appreciate the way you tried to go back for Lainie. They really do. And the way you helped Hamley get to safety. Some people would have just left them without trying to help at all. Trampled over their bodies to get to safety, even. The Division needs people like them. Like you,” she continued. “The Division also needs people like Liberty, who know when it isn’t the right time to take stupid risks.”
I sat in silence. I still couldn’t believe she was taking Liberty’s side after what she’d done. I’d thought she’d be furious, and would give it to Liberty both barrels when she had the chance. I’d been counting on it.
“You’re really lucky, you know that, right?” she asked me. I looked at her questioningly. “You disobeyed orders at least three times today. You could easily have been killed as a result, all three of those times. I get why you did it. But you need to start making better decisions. Or at least, start trusting the decisions that other people are making for you,” she informed me. I was irritated that she was telling me what I should and shouldn’t do, but only for a moment. She was saying it without malice or anger. She was saying it because she believed it, and because, deep down, she really did care for me in a way. Maybe Liberty did too. I couldn’t tell. Maybe in a few days time, I’d realise how lucky I was, and that I was the one in the wrong. In any case, Hung would certainly have an opinion on which decisions had been right, and which had been wrong. There’d certainly be something of an inquest into
the events of mission. Whatever happened, I was glad it was over.
I sat and stewed for a little while longer, on my own. Antonia went back over to sit with the other cadets. Liberty was still sitting where I’d been earlier, on her own. Possibly regretting the decision she had made. She hadn’t spoken to the other team, and I felt sure if they hated anyone on the ship right then, it would be her. Despite my anger, I felt a bit sorry for her. Clearly, it was a difficult job being a squad leader. You were responsible for making the hard decisions, and whatever choices you made, sooner or later, you’d be wrong. Eventually, I looked over at Antonia, Tasia, and Casper in conversation with the three healthy recruits from the other squad. I carefully got out of my seat, and made my way over. Maybe talking to them would make me feel a little bit better. Finding out more about their dead teammate wouldn’t make her any easier to forget, but it might at least be cathartic.
I joined them, and just sat quietly, listening for a few minutes. Then, I began to join in. They’d been on their way back from their first mission. Like us, they’d been terrified, and had considered themselves extremely lucky that they hadn’t run into enemy forces whilst they were there. Like us, they’d been relieved when the shuttle had picked them up, thinking they were safe, for the day, at least. When the transport had landed to pick us up, they’d just sat patiently. When they’d heard the gunfire, the squad leader, a tall, slim girl called Maxell, had found out what the situation was from the pilot. As soon as she’d heard our squad was in trouble, she’d given the order to leave the shuttle and support us without hesitation. Despite the fact they’d been scared to death at the thought of engaging the enemy, they’d rushed headlong to face them to save a squad of strangers. I marvelled at that. Sure, I’d been willing to put my life at risk to try to get their injured teammates onto the transport, but that had been in the heat of the moment, with the knowledge that they were in that position because of us. Had I been on the transport, though, that first mission, and found out a squad outside needed help, I’m not sure I would have been so brave. The stress alone of that first mission had nearly killed me, and I don’t know if I would have even mentally been up to it.
Eventually, the medic came over to us, to let us know that Hamley was relatively stable, but needed proper medical attention, and blood, as soon as possible, or he might not make it. She went back over to continue doing what she could, and we all sat nervously, the conversation having dried up. The reality of the situation had kicked firmly back in again. One soldier was dead, with another in critical condition. Both squads may have completed our primary missions, but our secondary missions, stay alive, were taking something of a hit. It was with relief, then, that the deceleration alarm sounded. We all looked at each other with hopeful expressions. Maybe, just maybe, we had made it in time. Those hopes, though, were suddenly dashed beyond all recognition.
“That’s not good,” the medic said with a grim expression on her face. “We can’t possibly be back at the Anastasia yet.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The medic took a comm unit from the wall by the treatment area, and started speaking into it.
“Oh no, it’s happening again!” a member of the other squad, Lise, said. Her face went white.
“We don’t know what’s happening yet,” Max told her, trying to sound reassuring. “It’ll probably just be a simple pick-up this time.”
“The pilot wants one of the squad leaders to go to the cockpit,” the medic shouted over. Lise gave Max a frightened look, and Max looked grimly back at her. She turned to the rest of us, and started unhooking her harness.
“Keep an eye on her for me,” she said.
“I got it,” came a voice from over behind us. I turned to see Liberty floating across to the door that lead to the front of the ship. Max looked a bit uncertain for a minute, then sat back down. We waited for a few minutes, sat in silence. After about five minutes had gone, Max unhooked her harness, and made her way out to the front of the ship.
“What do you think this is about?” Casper whispered over to me, being careful not to let Lise hear. I shrugged.
“When we were extracting you guys, the pilot originally just called out that we were going down for an extraction over the comm,” Benji, the fifth member of the other squad, told us.
“Well, this can’t be good then,” muttered Casper, looking towards the hatch the squad leaders had left through. I heard a belt click, and Tasia started making her way past us. “Hey, what are you doing?” Casper asked her, grabbing her arm.
“Somethings obviously going on,” Tasia replied, pulling her arm out of his grip. “I’m going to find out what it is. I’m the strategist,” she said by way of explanation. Casper watched her disappear, then shot me a quizzical look. He paused for a moment.
“It might be a tech issue,” he pointed out, and unhooked himself, following Tasia’s lead. I looked over at Lise, but Benji seemed to have things in hand. I got up to, and looked over at Antonia.
“I am not going through there, getting myself in trouble,” she said to me. “You probably shouldn’t either. You know that, right?” I just shrugged, and made my way out.
As soon as I left the room, I realised I might have made a mistake. I had no idea where I was going. Then, a hatch shut towards the end of the corridor, so I went that way. It led up a few steps. When I reached the top, I could hear voices, and floated down the corridor towards them.
“You’re not supposed to be up here,” Liberty was saying as I entered the cockpit. “Both of you, you need to go back.” Then, she saw me, and began clenching her fists even tighter than she already was.
“Just tell us what’s going on,” Casper replied to her. “You’ve got some traumatized people back there. Milo is having a fit right now.” Liberty raised her eyebrows at him, then nodded toward me. Casper looked over, and saw me. “Oh, Milo. You look a lot better…” he said. The rest of us all just shook our heads.
“You’re testing my patience, Casper,” Liberty told him.
“We should probably just tell them,” Max pointed out. Liberty looked at her for a moment, paused, then rolled her eyes.
“OK, look. The pilot’s received a message from one of our people on a nearby planet,” Liberty said.
“So, someone needs extraction,” Casper said, holding his hands out.
“No. They’ve asked for support on the ground,” she replied.
“So what? Just extract them,” Casper said to her. “We haven’t got time to screw around.”
“I can’t do that,” the pilot said. “They’ve specifically asked for ground support, no shuttle landing.”
“So what?” Casper said again. “Just extract them, and let’s get out of here. We’ve got seriously injured people back there.”
“We can’t do that,” Liberty said. “The call was for ground support, so we have to provide it.”
“Says who?!” Casper demanded. “Who died and put them in charge?”
It’s a Priority One message,” the pilot informed him.
“I don’t know what that means,” Casper said, looking around at the rest of us.
“It means we have to do what it says,” Liberty said.
“It means the message comes from a high ranked operative,” the pilot explained. “We can’t ignore it, and we have to adhere to what it says.”
“So what do we do?” Tasia asked Liberty. “If the shuttle can’t land, there’s not much help we can offer?”
“There’s one unused drop pod attached to the ship,” Liberty pointed out. “We use that to get down to the surface, and find whoever sent the message.”
“Who’s we?” Casper asked.
“Us,” Liberty said. “Squad PSX63497B.” Casper stared at her, wide-eyed.
“We’re going down with you,” Max interjected.
“That’s not an option,” the pilot said. “The pod won’t respond well to the extra weight. There’s no guarantee you’d even survive the landing.”
“Well, I’
ll replace one of your people, then,” Max said to Liberty. Liberty paused. She glanced over at me, and thought for a few seconds.
“No,” she said. “No, we’re a team, that’s the only way it works.” Max glared at her for a moment.
“Who put you in charge?” Max asked quietly. Liberty didn’t answer.
“I did,” the pilot said. “I put her in charge. Good enough?” Max was quiet for a few moments, continuing to glare at Liberty.
“OK, fine,” she said eventually.
“We’ll need your help to fold your equipment in with ours,” Liberty told her.
“Yeah, no problem,” Max replied, still looking annoyed.
“We don’t have any ammunition left,” I pointed out. “How much have you guys got?”
