The Best of Us

by Karen Traviss

  “I knew Jamie for five years, and that’s a lifetime when you serve together,” Chris said. “But nobody should die at twenty-three. Jamie did, and he signed up knowing it could happen. He didn’t do it for a government or to wave some flag. He did it for his neighbours, to protect them and defend their way of life, because somebody had to, and he didn’t need to be asked. He stepped up. That is a man. That is a soldier. That was my friend. Stand easy, Three Eight.”

  Luce just took a breath. Fonseca shifted from one foot to the other. There was a second or two of absolute ringing silence, and then the minister got up, catching Trinder’s eye and nodding. It was the cue for the firing party to take up position. Trinder had never been so relieved to walk outside. He paced out the required distance from the grave, Fonseca and Luce behind him, and they didn’t meet each other’s eyes, not even when they lined up with their rifles.

  The casket was in position now. They’d drilled so many times to get this absolutely right.

  “Firing party — atten... shun.” Trinder counted himself through it. “Ready — aim — fire.” Crack. “Ready — aim — fire.” Crack. “Ready — aim — fire.” Crack. “Ready — present arms.”

  It was over before he knew it. He hadn’t even noticed the quadrubot standing among the older gravestones.

  “Perfect,” Solomon said. “Flag?”

  “Yes, flag. Sorry. Come on, Lennie.”

  It wasn’t the most dexterous flag-folding in history, but at least they didn’t drop it. Trinder presented it to Erin. She seemed surprised, then took it in both hands and held it to her chest.

  “That was a really wonderful thing to do,” she said. “Thank you, Major.”

  “Honoured to do it, ma’am.”

  Luce seemed to be checking the crease in his pants, but Trinder suspected that he was trying to avoid eye contact until he’d composed himself. “It’s good to feel like this again,” Luce said, more to himself than anything. Trinder could only guess what he meant, but he was sure he understood. This was about remembering that you belonged — to somewhere, in something, with others. He couldn’t even find the words right then, but when Luce finally looked up and met his eyes, he knew they were thinking the same thing.

  Trinder expected everyone to disperse and go their separate ways immediately, but they hung around. He found himself talking to people who’d lived on his doorstep for a long time but who he’d never met, and probably never would have if he hadn’t turned up for this brief duty. And now he knew the vets from the camp — all of them. He was never going to remember all the names in one session, but Solomon would prompt him when necessary.

  Fonseca tapped his elbow. “We need to get Chris back to the infirmary soon. I think he’s overdone it.”

  “Damn. Okay, let’s do our courtesies.”

  Chris was parked among a group of vets who were passing around a steel hip flask, making toasts. Trinder, reluctant to haul a man away from mourning, waited until Chris shook hands and bumped fists with his comrades before accepting the flask and steering himself away.

  He seemed more subdued on the short drive back to Ainatio, nursing the flask like a religious relic. When they reached the infirmary entrance, he offered it to Trinder.

  “I prefer this painkiller to Dr Mendoza’s,” he said. “Want some? How about you, Captain?”

  Fonseca smiled. “I’ll take a rain check. See you later.”

  “I’ve got a bottle in my quarters,” Trinder said. “Special occasion stuff. Follow me.”

  Everybody needed to decompress after a funeral. Trinder decided it was as good a time as any to crack the bottle of Scotch that he’d planned to save for the end of the world, but that had already come and gone, and this was probably the last bottle he’d ever see. Chris talked about Jamie, and Trinder listened.

  “That was some impressive drill today, Major.”

  “Thank you. And it’s Dan.”

  “Okay. Dan. It was nice for Jamie, but the guys needed it too. Some of them have days when they feel they’re in denial and we’re not any kind of army any more, then someone reminds them that it’s all still up here.” Chris tapped his right temple. “And as long as it is, and everyone agrees what we’re willing to fight for, and that we’ve got each other’s backs, then it’s still an army. Or navy. Whatever. Combined defence force. You’ve just got to keep the faith.”

  There was probably some profound quotation from history about the military ethos, but Trinder liked Chris’s version better. It wasn’t any more complicated than that.

  “Yeah. Keep the faith.”

  “And thanks for the ammo.”

  “Should have done it a long time ago. Sorry.”

  “Look at it this way. Jamie would have been happy that he could bring people together. You were getting on great with the townsfolk today.”

  “Okay, roll back a couple of years. When you had to bug out with the civvies.”

  “Yeah?”

  “How did you choose who to save? Or did you just take on any displaced persons you found?”

  Chris studied his glass, holding it up to the light. “No, I played God. Might have been the wrong call, but we had vulnerable people on board. Kids, old folks, women on their own. There are some people who aren’t a good fit with that.”

  “How do you decide who’s a good fit?”

  “I used to be an asshole who worked for assholes. I know one when I see one.”

  It was the wrong time to ask Chris to explain. Trinder just topped up their drinks. Were Chris and his buddies the right kind of people to join Nomad? Of course they were. Trinder had already made up his mind. They were stoic, competent, proven survivors who were willing to risk their own lives to save others. But even if they hadn’t been, that didn’t mean it was okay to abandon them to an uncertain future.

  “Okay, I know you want to ask, so I’ll save you the socially awkward bit,” Chris said. “I was doing time for beating the crap out of a guy, then State Defence ran out of bodies and needed to fill posts. That’s how I got out. And don’t comfort yourself by thinking I punched the guy out for messing with my mom or anything primal like that. I hurt him because I was paid to. It was just the first time I got caught. But I’d have done it for free for the reward of putting some punk in his place.”

  Trinder didn’t doubt him, but he still couldn’t see a criminal in the man’s face. Chris had decided to carry on doing his duty long after there was no chain of command to make him do it. Right now that was all Trinder cared or needed to know.

  “So you agreed to serve rather than stay in prison,” Trinder said.

  “Yeah, I’d rather have had a death sentence than be locked up. And I wanted to fight. I’m an angry bastard. My dad was the hide-and-hope-it-goes-away type. Me, I prefer to go hunt it and kill it. Sometimes that doesn’t lead to the noble outcome you expect.” He clinked his glass carefully against Trinder’s. “And military life made sense to me. I slid into it like a glove.”

  “Any military in the family?”

  “No. All white-collar pen-pushers.” Chris was still savouring the single malt like a man who hadn’t tasted any for a very long time. He didn’t drink fast. “I liked the sense of purpose and loyalty. You can trust your buddies with your life. That doesn’t come easily to me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need something to believe in, Dan.”

  Trinder couldn’t argue with that. “Easier to believe in a flag than an Ainatio business plan.”

  “Don’t knock corporate armies. The East India Company ran a whole political empire and half the world’s trade at one time.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Uh-huh. Bigger army than their government.”

  “Damn.”

  Trinder had made his decision. He’d have one more crack at Erskine or Alex Gorko — anyone whose ear he could bend — about let
ting the transit camp in on the Nomad mission. But Chris had to be told soon. If Ainatio pulled out and took Kill Line with it, the camp would lose its power and food supply. They could probably get by without it, but it would be a grindingly hard existence again, and they deserved better.

  Doug Brandt needed to know as well. Chris had clarified a lot of things for Trinder today, and one stood out: you had to agree on what you were willing to fight for, and watch each other’s backs. It wasn’t just survival. It was the whole point of existing at all.

  Trinder’s screen beeped. He reached across to the shelf to read the message, and found it was a reminder from the infirmary that Chris was late for his treatment.

  “Got to get you back, Cinderella,” Trinder said. “Mendoza wants to tinker with your leg.”

  “Better tell him I’ve been drinking.” Chris tapped his knee. It made a hollow plastic noise. “I have no idea what goes on inside this shell gizmo. It’s like a mini intensive care ward. It feels like something’s knitting inside it.”

  “I think it probably is.”

  Trinder chalked up today as progress, and late was always better than never. After he took Chris to the infirmary, he went back to his quarters, planning to read. But first he needed to do a little clandestine research. He inserted his earpiece and got back on the comms net.

  “Sol,” he said quietly, “I need a few documents. The residents’ data list for Kill Line. Did the doctor draw one up? A list for the camp would be handy too.”

  “Already done,” Solomon said. “I thought you’d never ask. But no list of camp personnel.”

  “How well you know me.”

  “I think you reached some decisions today.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “Good. They’re the same as mine, which is very convenient.”

  Trinder was reassured, and not only because Solomon was designed to be ethical. He had the feeling that Solomon knew what he thought was worth fighting for as surely as any human, and in any battle, Solomon was perfectly placed to win.

  * * *

  Wardroom, Survey Vessel Cabot:

  eight Weeks Out from Pascoe B — Opis

  “Well, nobody’s dead, so that’s a good start.” Surgeon Commander Haine edged into the tiny wardroom, rubbed his hands together as if he was feeling chilly, and dispensed a mug of coffee. “Hate starting my rounds with a stiff.”

  “You sure about that, Logan?” Bridget Ingram rested her head in her hands, trying to persuade her stomach that it really did need a nice milky coffee. When she glanced up, her officers looked like they were simply shaking off a routine hangover from a rowdy mess dinner. She was the only cryo casualty. “I’ll want a second opinion when your assistant scab-lifter revives.”

  “Still no respect for the medical profession, I see.”

  “How long did it take you to bring me round?”

  “Twelve hours longer than expected. I was all for dumping you out the airlock before you went rancid, but the XO’s terribly loyal. Aren’t you, Peter?”

  Ingram tried another sip of coffee but that ominous roiling sensation started just below her sternum again. “It’s not going to work. I refuse to laugh.”

  “Bears,” Peter Bissey said. “They don’t eat for ages when they come out of hibernation. Got to wait for all the systems to spool up. But I’d never have let him jettison you, ma’am, not with all that edible meat left on you.”

  “I’m touched. Did the bears say how long it was before they could keep coffee down?”

  “I didn’t ask. Chin up. You’ll be on claret and steak for breakfast in no time.”

  “Oh. No. Please. Don’t... ”

  We’re a long way from home. We’ll see a follow-up mission long before we get a reply to any signal I send now. So we do what we always do to get through a tough day. We take the piss and laugh it off. That’s better.

  “I’ll brief you when you’re ready, ma’am,” Bissey said, suddenly serious. Maybe he thought he’d been too familiar. “Just say.”

  Nobody had to defer to her rank any longer anyway. They were all Ainatio contractors now, even though they’d stepped straight out of their respective navies and air forces to crew Cabot. Her grandfather wouldn’t have recognised today’s pick ’n’ mix world of seamlessly blended state and private sector military, but she could carry on pretending this was the real navy as long as she liked. Cabot had just absorbed the same rank structure. It worked, and everybody knew the rules.

  “Can we see Opis unaided yet?” She took the few paces to the end of the compartment, steadying herself with an occasional grab at the nearest solid object, and raised the debris shields on the window. She could still see recognisable constellations, which made it feel a little less bleak, but there was no Mars, and no Earth, not even as a bright point of light. “I’d better wait until my eyes plug themselves in again. I don’t remember feeling this bad when we did the trials.” She tottered back to the table. “Sitrep, please.”

  “Well, we’ve been revived some weeks earlier than originally scheduled.”

  “Is it a glitch?”

  “No, it looks like it was initiated deliberately. Kokinos is re-checking. There’s nothing on the logs to indicate a system failure. And the whole revival schedule looks like it’s shifted by the same amount of time, so maybe it’s as simple as changes being made at the last minute after we were chilled down. It’s not going to affect the supply situation or life support, though. We can handle the extra weeks of full consumption. As long as we can run cryo again in an emergency, we’ll be okay.”

  “So we should all be on our feet in two weeks, just sooner than expected.”

  “Yes, and we’ve established a link with the transmitter on Opis, so the advance missions all went to plan. Nomad Base is ready to receive us.”

  Ingram kept her relief under control. If anything had gone wrong, it would have been the first thing she was told when she opened her eyes, but it was good to hear Bissey confirm everything was okay. Going into cryo without knowing whether the unmanned advance missions had reached their destination and actually built some infrastructure had been a leap of faith. They hadn’t come all this way and lost so many years just to climb back in the fridge and go home again.

  “So what environmental data are we getting?”

  “Actually, there’s something we need to address before that, ma’am. There’s a message waiting for you. I can’t access it. Eyes only.”

  “Damn, that must be at least forty years old. How sensitive can it be? Okay, better get that out of the way first. Anything else?”

  “I’ll keep it brief. Everything’s fine. Textbook. We land in fifty-four days. And they all lived happily ever after.”

  “I like that story.”

  “Are you going to be okay getting to your cabin?”

  “It’s not that far. I’ve got to get my circulation going somehow.”

  Ingram had to consult the deck plan to remind herself where she was heading. Cabot had been built to move equipment and supplies with personnel in cryo for most of the journey so the crew space was more submarine than cruise liner. She found her pale grey, oak-grained cabin door with CAPTAIN B. INGRAM COMMANDING OFFICER stencilled on it in black. A hand scan unlocked it, and she stepped into a space that was probably smaller than the one reserved for cleaning equipment. It wasn’t even dusty — the cleaning bots were working normally, then — and it had the faint plastic and carpet smell of a new hotel.

  The chair creaked under her as she squeezed behind the desk and felt for the button to bring up the monitor. The screen showed the Ainatio logo with a pile of message icons, but only one was marked MISSION PRIORITY.

  “This had better be the room service menu.” Ingram put her hand on the screen to unlock it. “Okay, what’s up?”

  She’d expected some recorded pep talk from old man Erskine, or a long lis
t of amendments to the op order, but it was just a webcam shot of what looked like a meeting room in any office block. Well, that was a shabby welcome for an epoch-making journey.

  But nothing happened.

  She tapped the screen a few times, wondering if she’d missed some control panel in her fogged state, but the image just sat there. Then a voice boomed out of the bulkhead speakers.

  “Good morning, Captain. How are you? I’m Solomon. It’s good to talk to you. I hope you’ve recovered from cryo.”

  Ingram waited for the recording to continue, but it didn’t. She tapped the screen again.

  “Oh, come on, you sodding thing. Play.”

  “Are you having problems, Captain?”

  “Come on... what the hell’s wrong with this?”

  “Captain, this isn’t a recording. This is real time.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Shall I start again? I appreciate this is going to come as a surprise.”

  Real time. Those two words were like an ice-cold shower. Ingram was suddenly switched on and alert. “You said real time.”

  “Correct. You’re going to hear that phrase a lot in the next few weeks. There have been some developments since you left.”

  She hoped she’d heard that right. “What exactly?”

  “We have superluminal relays in position now. You can talk with HQ almost instantly.”

  “Seriously? Is that where you are?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I hope you’re not winding me up.”

  “I can assure you it’s true.”

  It was the difference between complete isolation for their lifetimes and staying in touch with the world. Ingram knew there was an urgent question at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t pin it down in her cryo-lagged state.

  “Well, Bravo Zulu, Ainatio,” she said. “Just relays, or can we move ships?”