by Ben Weaver
“Don’t worry, sir,” Bren had said. “We’re all trained professionals.”
“Professional wolves,” I had said with a laugh.
Ms. Rainey sipped her wine, then asked. “Your daughter’s just been commissioned.”
“That’s right.”
“You must be very proud.”
“Yes. And scared. We can’t let this generation see the things we’ve seen.”
“And oh, what we’ve seen…”
“Are you still having the nightmares?”
“It’s weird. That was so long ago, but now and then they do come back. It usually takes something during the day to trigger them.”
“Like a meeting with me. Sorry.”
“No, it’s all right. Even the slightest things will do it, like someone just casually mentioning Columbia Colony. That night I’ll go home, climb into bed, and wake up in the middle of the night with bodies lying all over my room. I’ve tried the drugs, seen the therapists. I keep kidding myself that I’ll heal in time. But we don’t heal, do we…”
“We manage.”
She considered that, reached once more for her wine. We ate quietly for a few minutes. When our entrees arrived, she began cutting her vegetable pizza and asked, “What’s really going on here, Scott? Off the record.”
“Off the record? It’s big.”
“C’mon, Scott. It’s me.”
“Not this time, Elise. But I’ll tell you this: I’ve never needed you more than I do now.”
“You’re scaring me.”
I nodded slowly. “Talk to me about the Falls Morrow. You have a contact aboard, don’t you?”
“Two actually. What do you need?”
The barest of hisses turned my gaze up, away from my meal—
Even as Ms. Elise Rainey slumped forward onto the table, a bloodstain swelling across the back of her blouse. And there, standing behind her, was Bren, gripping his QQ60 pistol with attached silencer. “Fuckin’ reporters,” he muttered, then faced me, the pistol leveled on my forehead. “Sorry, sir. But I’m afraid there’s going to be a war. And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
I reached across the table, and, with a trembling hand, checked Rainey’s neck for a pulse. I couldn’t find one. Then, I glanced up at him. Don’t trust anyone. “Bren? Why?”
“She’s my president. And she knew you’d never go along with this. You’re all about duty, honor, and the code.”
I searched the room for Tat, Ysarm, and Jiggs. “You killed them, too?”
“The second hardest thing I’ve ever done.” He thrust the pistol at me.
“You think you can get away with this?”
“Tomorrow’s news will report that I was a mole planted by the Mars Militia. It’s not the legacy I would’ve chosen, but you don’t get too many choices when you’ve been hired to die.”
The pistol went off as I reached into the bond, willing myself out of the projectile’s path, but I wasn’t fast enough, and the round grazed my head. I materialized next to Bren, who, before I could stop him, shoved the pistol into his mouth, jerked his finger, and showered me with blood and gray matter. He fell back, knocking me onto my rump, as pins and needles poked my cheek and wove into my ear. Blinking blood from my eyes, I caught a glimpse of Ms. Rainey before I passed out.
Skinned up and monitoring the Western Alliance tactical channel as well as Paul’s channel, Halitov and I hit the maglev platform’s stairwell and slipped up to the first level, pausing near a two-meter tall bank of lockers. A databar in my HUV indicated that Paul’s tac was functioning and his position appeared on a 3-D map of his command post within a bookstore/café cordoned off by three particle cannon bunkers. Halitov and I would slip along the perimeter, dodging from bunker to bunker, until we got close enough to materialize in front of him, fire the darts, and pray the antimnemo took effect before he could escape. But as usual, our timing was shit, our plans torn from our fingers and express-mailed to Hell.
With a rush of air and a computer voice announcement, a maglev train rumbled around the corner ahead, its blue-and-silver nose slicing forward, the passenger compartments behind seemingly empty. I listened to the skipchatter over Paul’s tactical channel:
“White Star Five, you secured that train, didn’t you?”
“Affirmative, sir. Complete lockdown.”
“Then why is it entering my perimeter?”
“Sir, I don’t know, sir!”
“Aw, shit, they’re getting set up,” Halitov said over our private channel. “That train’s loaded with troops. Here they come!”
At least the company commanders recognized the old Trojan Horse gambit and ordered their people to open fire. Cannon flashes erupted from all twenty-one bunkers lining the platform’s perimeter, and the train’s nose exploded under the barrage, tattered alloy tumbling across the tracks, crashing through windows, and hurtling into the lockers beside us.
As Paul’s Wardens continued laying down a fierce barrage of suppressing fire, I realized exactly what the Eastern Alliance Marines were doing, but because I couldn’t contact the Wardens without giving up my location and identity, all I could do was watch as enemy troops arrived in their airjeeps—not from the main entrance behind the train, but from outside. In fact, the train had not been a Trojan Horse but merely a diversion to misdirect the Wardens’ fire while Marines penetrated the station via the nearest platform down rail. From there, they would advance on to finish Paul’s battalion, the whole strike carefully coordinated by Paul himself.
With white-knuckled grips on our rifles, we sprang away from the lockers, hit the wall, then found the bond and sprinted sideways across a bank of windows that exploded behind us as Marines outside targeted our silhouettes.
“Maybe it’s time we checked the classifieds for another job,” Halitov groaned, hopping down from the wall and hustling to the first bunker, his skin coruscating with reflected rounds.
“Who are you guys?” asked a young, bug-eyed sergeant directing the two cannon operators.
“Don’t mind us,” Halitov answered the woman. “Just passing through.”
“Sergeant, forget the train,” I told her. “Direct your fire outside!” I pointed past the bunker, toward the shattered windows, as an airjeep raced by.
The sergeant eyed the train, the windows, saw two more airjeeps, then it dawned on her. “Palladino? Martin? Bring those cannons around!”
I flashed her a thumbs-up, then bolted on after Halitov, who was already halfway to the next bunker, some thirty yards ahead.
We kept tight to the storefronts, particle fire tossing up sparks and punching holes in everything, the incoming more fierce than anything I had ever experienced. Nearly every movement brought my skin into a round.
Above the storefronts, a quick salvo from a wild airjeep gunner shattered another bay of windows, sending the glass down on us as another three airjeeps, tight on the heels of that fire, penetrated the station. Two banked right, their single cannon operators leveling fire on the bunkers while the third pulled straight up, wheeled around, then strafed Paul’s people from the rear. Two bunker cannons exploded, along with their operators and mobile fuel systems, and you couldn’t tell what was metal and what was flesh anymore. But Halitov and I repressed the horrific images and kept streaking along the wall, drawing closer to Paul’s command center. A red blip flashed in my HUV, indicating Paul was still there—and that blip drove me harder, faster.
A terrific thunderclap threw Halitov back toward me as a duty-free gift shop succumbed to a grenade blast, the fireball swallowing us before we dropped to our knees. My skin level plunged to forty-two percent as the ball passed, leaving a blinding black cloud in its wake. An infrared view via our tactical computers guided us forward, through the smoke, until we reached the next row of stores.
Opposite us, across the platform, ten, maybe a dozen airjeeps buzzed across the zone, their pilots deftly evading streams of cannon fire and small-arms fire from the scores of Wardens posted along the
catwalks some ten meters above. I’d already seen a handful of those Wardens get maimed or shredded, what was left tumbling to thump on the deck. We were reliving the massacre at Columbia, and I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand it at all.
“Jesus Christ!” Halitov cried as we threaded between bodies lying before a smoldering bunker. “Look at these guys! Where is Paul? Where is he?”
“Just go, man, go!” I shouted, then craned my head.
An airjeep some forty meters out swooped down, its gunner intent on locking his bead. I whirled, lifted my rifle, locked a bead of my own, wearing down his skin until he finally blew off the airjeep’s back. The pilot switched gun operation to the computer, and the cannon swung back on me and Halitov. I turned and ran, rounds nipping my shoulders.
Back at South Point Academy, Major Yokito Yakata had shared with us an old saying: During combat, soldiers’ brains turn to water and run out their ears. All they have to go on is instinct. And while I clung to my instincts, Halitov’s brain turned not to water but in on itself, battling with the mnemosyne. He stumbled, fell. I went to him. He looked at me, gaze vague, head shaking, words coming out, incomprehensible at first, then:
“Twenty-two-sixty-six. Mining of bauxite begins on fifth planet in Ross Two-fifty-eight solar system. Inte-Micro Corporation CEO Tamer Yatanaya names planet ‘Allah-Trope’ and declares it retreat for Muslims being persecuted by Eastern Alliance powers. Allah-Trope becomes first offworld colony with predominately one religion.”
As Halitov went on, I stared at him and saw myself. The image scared the hell out of me. My friend convulsed a moment, then collapsed. His combat skin faded. I shouldered his weapon, dug my arms beneath his pits, lifted, and dragged him out there, as the particle fire sparked and ricocheted near his boots.
I reached the next smoldering bunker, hauled Halitov over the mangled bodies of fellow Wardens, then lay him behind the remaining blast plates that stood only a meter or so above the deck but should protect him from stray rounds. I shrugged off his rifle, lay it across his chest, then placed both of his hands on it, should he awaken and need to immediately fire. I checked his pulse: rapid but very much present. I didn’t know what else to do for him, and I could already hear him swearing over his inability to help, but my own internal swearing was louder because I needed him. Badly. His prejudice was a lot stronger than mine. I understood too keenly what Paul was feeling, and I worried that my understanding might make me hesitate.
“I’ll be back for you,” I said, more a promise to myself than to Halitov.
Still hunched over, I pocketed his QQ60 pistol loaded with the hiza darts, left the bunker, and hightailed along the last row of storefronts until, at the corner, I reached a row of bunkers five abreast outside the café. The cannons there boomed, and an airjeep took a direct hit, shedding smoke and metal as it flat-spun down to shatter across the platform. Cringing from the explosion, I slipped into the café, scuttling between bookshelves and display racks. I abandoned my rifle and gripped both QQ60 pistols. The moment I spotted Paul, I would empty both magazines.
Two aisles later, I neared the back of the café, where, according to my HUV, Paul had set up a bunker perimeter behind a serving counter. I peered around a shelf corner and lost my breath. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t shocked.
I was astonished.
Paul crouched down beside the counter, aiming a pistol at his father’s head.
Colonel J. D. Beauregard had come to stop his son?
“It’s too late,” Paul cried. “And it was all your fucking fault!”
“It’s not too late!” the colonel hollered as automatic weapons fire nearly drowned him out.
I thought back to the docking module, to something the sergeant had said, something I had forgotten to ask him about: “I have a huge problem letting you two on board my station without any record of a log-in or verification of your IDs. You’re the second party this week with similar orders.”
Colonel Beauregard must’ve been that other party, and if he had planned to stop his son, his plan had gone terribly awry.
And there I was, caught in the middle of a battle and a domestic drama that could decide the war’s outcome.
What the hell was I supposed to do? Make my move and kill the colonel’s son—right in front of him?
Could I even do that? As much as I hated Paul, could I really kill him?
I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.
Maybe if I had to, I would kill him.
Maybe I could just capture him before he hurt his father.
I weighed my options:
If I spring on him, he could still manage to fire that pistol and kill me or the colonel.
If I call his name, that would create a second-long standoff until he willed himself away.
If I will myself behind him, fire, then I might have a chance to get his weapon.
During my contemplation, Paul’s XO, a Ms. Duma Knight, had slipped up behind me. She tapped the side of my head with the muzzle of her particle rifle. “Drop your weapons!”
I tightened my grip on the pistols, froze, considered taking her out before she could fire, but I couldn’t waste time. I reached into the bond, and, without time to bypass the mnemosyne, used them to will myself behind Paul. I materialized there—even as Paul turned, saw me, opened his mouth.
There wasn’t time to empty the magazines, but I got off four darts, all striking his chest and sticking before I chucked the guns and lunged at him.
19 February, 2322
Holtzman’s security people had come just after the shots had been fired. I learned later that I had been rushed to the nearest trauma center, treated, and admitted overnight for observation. Ms. Rainey, Bren, Tat, Ysarm, and Jiggs had been pronounced dead at the scene.
From my hospital bed, I watched the midnight news reports as Vinnery’s story spun across the airwaves. Bren was, indeed, linked to the Mars Militia, and while I had shared the truth with Holtzman and Wong, who’d come to visit me, they suggested I do nothing until Vinnery arrived, at which time we’d all confront her and go public with the evidence of her vote tampering and conspiring to have me murdered. But I couldn’t bear the thought that those who had assisted her would vanish into the network, only to reappear at some future moment to once again undermine peace and stability between the alliances. I felt certain that something about my experience with Paul Beauregard would provide a clue in how to deal with Vinnery. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. So I just lay there, grieving and reliving one of the most painful moments of my life, searching in vain for connections, sometimes seeing them then realizing that I saw only what I wanted to see.
Later, during the wee hours, as my wounded head throbbed and I drifted in and out of sleep, something emerged from my thoughts, something about the guilty conscience of a traitor.
15
Paul Beauregard had only wanted to save his mother, but he had been willing to risk far too much. He had not been willing to make the same sacrifice that his father had, and in his decision to betray the colonies, Paul had once and for all reminded us that in his heart he was not a soldier. Not a soldier at all.
As I threw myself at Paul, two shots rang out, one from the XO’s rifle, the other from Paul’s pistol. The first round knocked my combat skin to zero, the second caught me point-blank in the shoulder and blew off my left arm at the bicep. It all happened so fast that I didn’t feel a thing and dropped onto Paul. I tried wresting the pistol from his grip as we both fell to the deck. Only then did I notice blood jetting from my stump. Paul shoved me back, and the drain from accessing the bond along with the sudden blood loss gripped me in dizziness and nausea. I rolled away, came up on my hand and knees, stared down the barrel of his pistol, my shoulder throbbing as I turned and glanced vaguely at my shattered limb. The shakes came on violently as I sat, tucked my stump into my chest.
“Let me shoot him, sir!” cried Duma Knight from behind us.
“Hold your fire!” Paul ordered.
&nbs
p; I glanced past Paul to the colonel. “Sir, are you all right, sir?”
The colonel just sat there, sweating and leering at Paul. “Letting my son come here was a test of his loyalty, Major. I couldn’t believe he was a traitor. But he is. And he’s convinced his XO that I’m the traitor.”
“Maybe you both are,” I said. “A lot of people died out there so you could test your son’s loyalty. You suspected this might be a trap—and you betrayed their trust.”
“The Eastern Alliance will not take this station, Major. And our relationship with our new allies in the Western Alliance will remain strong. I’ve made sure of that.” The colonel regarded his son. “Now, Paul. Drop that fucking weapon.”
Paul lolled his head back, swung the weapon drunkenly from me to his father. The hiza darts were taking affect. “You still think you can give me orders—after what you did to her? She’s your wife! My mother! You didn’t even try to save her!”
The colonel bore his teeth. “We do not negotiate with terrorists.”
I glanced back to the XO. “What are you going to do? Let him shoot his father?”
The woman stood there, panting, shifting the rifle between me and Colonel Beauregard. “Captain,” she called to Paul. “Is your father telling the truth?”
Instead of answering, Paul whipped around and fired, striking the XO in the face as she attempted to skin up. The single round blew most of her head off, and I winced as she crumpled.
Paul blinked hard at me, trying to focus. “You’re the one who told them, didn’t you. Somehow you got back and told them. But it doesn’t matter, Scott. We’re all fucked. And now I show you what duty and honor really get you.” He thrust his pistol forward. “After everything you’ve done, you’re going to die in this pathetic little train station. That’s the military for you.”
I closed my eyes, fought for the bond, but found only an amorphous feeling somewhere between numbness and sensation. I tensed, waiting for the report of his pistol, heard only a dull exhale, followed by the slight shuffle of boots.
