Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer (26 page)

“Yes, sir. I’ll make sure we have armed Marines here at all times.”

Huen left Doctor Guptra to do her job, then headed for his own quarters, utterly exhausted. It was either that, or stims, and he felt that at this moment his subordinates had the crisis well in hand.

Ever since Simms had been…what would she call it? Arrested? Captured? Identified? She settled on “removed.” Ever since Simms’ removal, she’d witnessed a dramatic improvement of the entire battalion, and Bravo Company in particular. Not perfection, but moving in the right direction. All was well with her world. The bizarre and surreal situation she had stepped into upon arrival had turned out to have a direct cause, and that cause had now been eliminated. Her faith in EarthFleet and the Marines had been restored.

“Company…tench-hut!” she barked in that peculiar throaty seal-like yelp affected for Marine drill and ceremonies. NCOs and officers from other nations had different ways of doing things, but she’d brought as much USMC with her as she could.

She turned the formation over to Captain Miller, the new Bravo Company CO. While no one on base, least of all Captain Rapplean, had yet turned out to be a hidden Blend, her candid secret report to Senior Steward Shan, and thereby Admiral Huen, had prompted a purge of those personnel deemed too tainted to rehabilitate. Perhaps they would be put to use somewhere else, or maybe their cyberware would be deactivated, even surgically removed, but that wasn’t her problem anymore.

The front lines were no place for the unreliable.

The short, chunky blonde captain received and returned Repeth’s salute with a precise flip and then about-faced to wait for the new commander, a man named Ruchek. He came highly rated, and it couldn’t hurt that the battalion would get a full colonel to take charge of it. Repeth had heard he was a no-nonsense, by-the-book officer of Hungarian extraction, minor nobility if one could believe the reports.

No problem. That kind of officer I can deal with. For a while I thought the world had gone mad, with a commander holding love-ins with line Marines. It’s actually a relief to know he was an enemy Blend, subverting for a nefarious purpose. Otherwise I would have to believe my troops were disloyal, and I could never stand that.
As she watched the new colonel inspect Repeth’s company – all right, Captain Miller’s company – she couldn’t keep a satisfied smile off her face.

Repeth stood up with the rest of the people in the battalion conference room when Colonel Ruchek entered the room, still wondering why she was there, and why everyone was back in dress uniform. It reminded her unpleasantly of the ridiculous procedures of the former commander.

Captain Miller and the other company commanders and first sergeants were in attendance, as well as Sergeant Major Tano. The new battalion XO, a rat-faced woman named Hennessy who despite the Eden Plague managed to support a visible crop of acne pimples on her face, rounded out the group of key Marine personnel on the base.

Behind the principals at the table sat more than a dozen lieutenants, all of the platoon leaders that had not been summarily busted in the purge and the staff officers, and another dozen-plus platoon sergeants, and Staff Sergeant Botkina, the personnel NCO. In short, anyone who was anyone in the battalion was here.

“Take your seats,” Ruchek said, then sat down, folding his lanky frame into the chair at the head of the table. His words susurrated with a middle-Asian accent, and his features reflected his Turkic and Kazakh bloodlines, mixed no doubt with the remnants of the Mongol peoples that had roamed the area almost a thousand years ago.

“I have just come from Admiral Huen’s office aboard
Artemis
. I must tell you that he is extremely concerned right now about the state of this base. Fortunately he is less concerned about the state of this battalion, now that the possibility of enemy influence has been removed, as well as certain personnel who took advantage of past laxity.”

Ruchek stood up again, as if his body contained too much energy to hold him in place, and he began to pace around the room. “The admiral asked me what role I saw this battalion playing in restoring and ensuring Grissom Base runs properly, and of course, I told him we would do whatever was asked of us. Marines get the job done, no matter what.”

Soft grunts of agreement and
oo-rah
s echoed around the room.

“Then he told me he wanted us to bolster an increased police presence here. Aerospace Security Police are already being transferred in, which is good, because they never held up their end before. Now they will have at least enough specialists to keep track of their own pilots and support personnel, which as you know comprise forty percent of the people here.”

Reaching up, Ruchek idly ran a finger along the top of the EarthFleet heraldic shield mounted on the back wall, flicked off the accumulated dust with a curled lip, and then continued to slowly pace the room. “The admiral has also put the corporate security forces that are supposed to deal with the civilian contractors on notice that they had better tighten up their areas. So I asked him what he envisioned our role to be, and you know what he told me?” He had come to a stop directly behind Repeth, so she had to turn her chair and crane her neck to keep him in view.

“Admiral Huen gave me two names. One was that of his Senior Steward, Shan. Big bastard, and not someone I’d want to tangle with from anywhere closer than a thousand meters.” This drew a bit of laughter.

“The other name was that of our own First Sergeant Repeth.”

Repeth’s eyes widened and her lips pressed shut, wondering just what this could mean. Was the admiral angry with her and Rick for slipping the video that exposed Simms anonymously into his system instead of going through normal channels? She’d heard Huen was a by-the-book type.

“Please, First Sergeant, join me up front.” Colonel Ruchek marched over to stand next to the EarthFleet flag on its pole in the corner.

Repeth quickly stood, wondering why it sometimes seemed easier to face an enemy with a gun than to be stared at by a room full of peers and superiors. She stood where he indicated, next to him, and came to attention.

Am I going to be publicly humiliated? Is this the way Ruchek is going to shape battalion up? With a whip in an iron fist? Will I lose my rank or position?

“Admiral Huen,” Ruchek went on, “identified First Sergeant Repeth as a highly competent EarthFleet Marine. What’s more, he pointed out that as a member of the United States Marine Corps, she was a highly decorated military police specialist, and served for a time as one of Admiral Absen’s stewards. All of this experience undoubtedly served her well in the recent difficulties. I suspect that is why Admiral Huen instructed me to appoint her to head up a special law enforcement task force that will coordinate among the various entities on Callisto, and will report directly to Senior Steward Shan, who of course reports to the admiral.”

Ruchek paused and initiated a polite round of applause as Repeth reddened with pleasure.
Not a censure after all, but an appointment
. Then she realized that she could not possibly perform her First Sergeant duties at the same time, and her heart fell.

“This will be a temporary appointment, the admiral told me, for no more than one year, and then she would come back to us. I in turn told him that it was not appropriate for a noncommissioned officer to hold such a position. So…”

Ruchek’s hand came out of his uniform pocket, holding a set of shoulderboards with senior warrant officer’s insignia on them. “I was told you had turned down a commission and several warrants, but this time, you don’t get to turn this down. This base needs you. Admiral Huen needs you. I need you, and you have to have the rank to go along with it.”

Signaling to Captain Miller to assist, Ruchek slipped the rank insignia onto Repeth’s shoulders, and then brought his fists firmly down on them as if to seat them in place. “Congratulations, Chief Warrant Officer Repeth. I’ve looked over your record. If you do a good job, as I am sure you will, you can keep them, with the retroactive pay grade of W-4.”

“Thank you, sir,” Chief Repeth said, saluting her commander to the unprompted applause of the room. “But I’d rather lead troops, if you’ll have me back.”

“Spoken like a true Marine. I have no doubt I will.”

Ruchek joined in the applause, and for a moment, Jill Repeth basked in her colleagues’ appreciation, knowing full well that she would earn every bit of it over the next year.

Like Rick said…there’s a new sheriff in town.

“Flash traffic for you, sir.”

“From who?” he asked as he pulled on his trousers.

“Header says EarthGov Intel, passed through Fleet. The rest is Eyes Only.”

“Right.” He opened his door, taking the tablet from the steward on the other side and closing it again. Setting the thing down on his smart desk linked it and brought up a prompt to sample DNA, scan retina and input codes. They’d never yet caught a Blend trying to break in to a secure system; there was no guarantee those theoretical leftover entities even knew what they were, much less worked for the Meme Empire, but counterintelligence organizations were paid to be paranoid.

Whether those measures would be effective was another story.

The message unlocked and presented itself. Ten minutes later, Absen put out the word to wake up and gather his senior staff in his command conference room, along with Red Team, at 0700, and he went back to bed. Flash traffic it may be, but its subject would not manifest for at least six months, perhaps a year. He could afford to give his people their sleep.

He, on the other hand, lay awake the rest of the early morning thinking, and then took a good hot shower and ate a leisurely breakfast, telling his stewards to make sure they brought in enough strong coffee for everyone in the meeting.

“Received this flash message last night,” he said loud enough to carry to the fifty or so people packed inside. “Several large Earthside radio telescopes just picked up fusion emanations along the same track the scout ship’s escape pod took. They retasked orbital and deep-space opticals to take a look and have confirmed the presence of a Meme ship half a light year out, in the Hills Cloud, the closer and denser piece of the Oort Cloud. Johnstone?”

Rick Johnstone had held up a hand and now said, “Sir, that must mean they decelerated, or we probably wouldn’t be seeing them. They must be intending to make use of the bodies there.”

“I concur, but we’ll just have to keep watching to see whether they are merely refueling, or are going to send something our way.” Absen paused. “Any word from the stealth probes?”

Colonel Myrna Zolen, his chief of intelligence, cleared her throat and lifted a tablet of her own. “We’re processing some reports now, but remember, the light from the enemy itself is getting here soonest. I’ve got a bit more info since the first ExecSum, sir. The emanations are interesting in that they varied a lot, as if the source was spinning, and they seem far too weak to represent a Destroyer-sized spacecraft. Doppler shift shows it decelerating at usual Meme noncombat rates. Collating all data, TECHINT says whatever it is masses no more than a tenth of what we expected.”

“Good news, then,” Absen responded in surprise. “Are they sure?”

“Confidence is medium to high, sir. There is a minority report that points out they could somehow be deliberately masking their emanations.”

“I’m not going to endorse anything that minimizes the danger,” Absen said firmly. “We proceed as before, in overkill mode, got it?” He looked around to receive assent from all of his staff. “Stallers? You got something?”

The EarthFleet Marine liaison officer, or LNO, looked even more sour and hatchet-faced than usual, as if he’d forgotten the tequila and gone straight to bitter lemons. “Just thinking about politics, sir. Anything that gives the whiners ammo…”

He meant the scattered opposition movements on Earth, which constantly questioned the austerity and massive defense expenditures that years of wartime economy had imposed on the populace. Some were crazies, disbelievers and conspiracy nuts. Some just thought the threat must be overstated, not believing the aliens to be as dangerous as claimed. Some thought the whole thing to be a lie, calling for Raphaela to be detained and interrogated until she “finally told the truth.”

“It will come out soon enough, but that’s not our problem. That does remind me: set up a videoconference with the Combined Council at their earliest convenience, would you, Tobias?”
Make the politicians handle the politics
, he thought.

His chief steward nodded and made a note.

“I want more steal probes out there,” Absen commented, inviting any disagreement to surface. “Send out four more, looping out then in to cross the enemy’s predicted position. This is the first we’ve really seen of them and we need all the intel we can get. Zolen, I want all your assets on this thing ASAP. You have carte blanche to retask the deep space sensors according to your best collection plan. We need to know what it is and what it’s doing, top priority.” He knew he was stating the obvious, but he was also communicating his explicit intent and ensuring unity of effort.

It was amazing how many military SNAFUs arose just from well-intentioned misunderstandings.

Ford from the Red Team raised his hand. “What if this is a deception ploy? Have some small decoy ship decel while the big one cruises straight on or even accelerates, hitting us early and unexpectedly?”

“Yes, good point,” Absen agreed. “That means Red Team goes into overdrive. It’s not theoretical anymore. Start adjusting your COAs and coming up with new ones based on the fresh information as it comes. Zolen, make sure Red Team has everything they want; no green door crap, period dot end of story, got it?” He pointed a finger at her to emphasize his order.