Authors: Brett James
The
door to the starboard engine room was on the other side of the
vaulted room, but there was no apparent way across. Peter motioned
his men down to a tube thirty feet below that ran in the general
direction. They leaped in, racing forward in single file.
The
gravity here was weak and Peter landed softly. Energy attacked his
feet, snapping against the walls of the glass tube. His radiation
warning light flashed, but it was too late for that. He would just
have to push through. Fortunately, he was the only one privy to that
information; his men had enough to worry about.
The
tube took a hard right and ran beneath a sun-bright fission chamber.
The men banked through the curve, then suddenly stopped. Peter was
furious, until he saw why.
A
stack of bodies lay across the tube, Windham’s entire platoon, set
out as neat as firewood. Peter turned sideways and eased past the
other men.
There
was movement on the other side of the bodies. It looked like a
marine, but something was wrong. His combat suit was pale white and
deformed, flattened on both sides. Peter waved, but the man fled
when he saw him, leaping from the tube and falling into the darkness
below.
Peter
gazed over the edge, jerking back as bullets sparked against the
tube at his feet. Machine-gun-toting Gyrines fired down on him from
a high platform.
Shoving
through the pile of bodies, Peter raced toward the shelter of an
overhead tube. He signaled his men to follow, but they were too busy
to notice, firing back at the Gyrines. He opened the comm—no
reason for stealth now—but before he could speak, the tube
shuttered from a heavy impact, nearly throwing Peter from his feet.
A shadow fell over him.
As
he turned to look, he was knocked forward. Thick red fingers wrapped
around his torso, hoisting him into the air.
The
fingers squeezed, cracking his suit and then his ribs. The pain was
far more than his suit could numb. He tried to scream, but his lungs
popped, collapsing. He was lifted high and then stopped, weightless,
as the giant hand reversed course. It swung him forward, his head
aimed straight at a thick I-beam.
Peter
heard a loud clunk and everything went black.
Half-drunk
and half-mad, Peter burst into the computer room wearing nothing but
pants. The room was empty; everyone else had gone to sleep. There
was a big battle tomorrow, but Peter had lost interest in such
trivia. He had skipped the briefing and holed up in his room with a
bottle of Saul’s whiskey, thinking about Amber. Or trying to.
His
memories of her had been fading quickly; when he tried to imagine
her face, he saw only a blur. He came to the computer room to read
her old letters, hoping they would bring her back to him. He missed
her. He missed the good feeling that came from thinking of her. He
needed that more than ever, stuck out here, all his friends dead.
Peter
paged back to her earliest letters, those she had sent him in Basic.
He was drunker than he’d figured, jerking and mistyping, but he
finally managed to open one. It was blank. And so was the next.
“Stupid
computer,” Peter grunted, hitting the side of the monitor. He
paged through her letters, pounding the keys, finding blank after
blank.
The
first actual letter was only two months old. “My dearest
darlingest Peter,” it read. “Today we held a picnic in the town
square, offering to feed anyone who brought along steel to be
recycled. Charlotte, as you would expect, brought only an old
watering can, but Ms. Johnson drove up in her husband’s
front-loader and said we could have it if we wanted…”
Peter
shoved to his feet and threw a kick at the terminal. It flew off,
knocking through four rows of monitors and shattering against the
wall. He felt a bone in his foot snap.
A
picnic?
Peter thought, disgusted.
That’s what I get?
He
ripped the locket from his neck, breaking the chain, and fumbled it
open. The hair spilled out. He rolled a clump between his thumb and
finger. The color was wrong—light brown with sun-bleached
highlights. He threw the locket at the terminal and limped away.
Back
in his room, he took another slug of whiskey, then pulled on his
suit, letting it numb the pain. He’d have to find someone to look
at his foot, but who? Linda? He’d never had to deal with an injury
before.
Of
course, I have all-new recruits tomorrow
, Peter thought.
They’ll
probably get me killed instead.
— — —
“I
refuse to answer that,” Colonel Chiang San said, leaning his fork
on the edge of his plate with much greater care than the task called
for. The colonel was a precise man, but his current assiduousness
was simply because he was drunk.
“I
will say that I’ve been here longer than any of you,” he
continued. “I’ve been here so long that I can’t even remember
the Livable Territories. I doubt that any of you lot even have three
months.”
The
colonel looked up from his fork and gazed, with bloodshot eyes, at
the dozen officers seated in his private dining room. He picked out
the hook-nosed, brown-skinned man opposite him. “How about you,
Vadiraj?”
“Three
months exactly, sir,” came the sheepish reply.
“A
real veteran,” boomed Chiang San, knocking his fist on the table
and upsetting his fork. He took a moment to replace it; then,
satisfied, he picked it up to use as a pointer. He asked each man at
the table the same question. Most had been on base for under a
month. None of them ranked above sergeant.
The
ranks of both lieutenant and major had been replaced by the battle
computer. The computer made instantaneous decisions, taking into
account every piece on the battlefield, with results far superior to
those of human officers. It was only at the higher levels—colonel
and up—where men still excelled. And at the lower. Sergeants would
be human for as long as marines were because no man would follow a
robot into combat. They had to be inspired—or needled—by someone
with as much at stake as them.
In
the modern chain of command, sergeants reported directly to
colonels, who then reported to the generals. Sitting at the top of
the heap was the Great General, the four-starred commander in chief
of the entire United Forces, marines and navy alike.
So
when Chiang San wanted to loosen up, he did so in the company of his
most senior sergeants. His Sunday dinners were one such occasion,
during which he pointedly drank as much alcohol as the rest of the
attendees combined. At least that’s how it looked to Peter, but
this was only his second time at the table.
“And
you?” the colonel asked, offering his fork to Peter.
“Twenty-five
days, sir.”
“Twenty-five
days?” The colonel said, making a show of not believing it. “So
little?”
“Twenty-five
days and sixteen missions, sir,” Peter said, although his private
count was well over a hundred. “It feels like a long time.”
“I’m
sure it does, son.” The colonel set the fork down but missed the
table. He bent over to retrieve it. “Nothing warms an old
warrior’s heart like hearing kids talk about hard times.”
Chiang
San reached for the fork, but it got away from him. “Let’s see
what you think when you have four hundred under your belt,” he
said, dropping to all fours and crawling under the table.
“You’ve
fought four hundred battles?” asked one of the sergeants,
awestruck.
“Four
hundred and twelve victories,” the colonel said from somewhere to
Peter’s left. “But to be fair, the odds of survival go way up
when you stay at the back.”
Sergeant
Vadiraj stood up, puffed out his chest, and raised his glass. “To
four hundred and twelve victories,” he called out. The colonel
popped up next to him, fork raised proudly.
“No,”
the colonel said, slapping the glass from the sergeant’s hand.
“What a terrible thing to drink to.”
The
room waited as the colonel pulled to his feet and tottered back to
his chair. Vadiraj didn’t even wipe the wine from his face. The
colonel settled and replaced the fork, then lifted his own glass
with sudden enthusiasm. “To four hundred and thirteen!”
The
men toasted, pounding the table, then attacked the steaks in front
of them. Peter didn’t know how Chiang San managed to get real
meat, but he fought the urge to rip it apart with his teeth.
“So
tell us, my young sergeant,” Chiang San said to Peter, “just how
many victories in the Sim Test you’ve had.”
Peter
forced a hunk of steak down his throat, then gave the answer the
colonel already knew: “One.”
“One
victory, says the officer who, in spite of his four short weeks of
active service, and his…” the Colonel leaned back and peered at
Peter, “his tall stature, already has four tactics registered with
the battle computer. Four, gentlemen! I don’t believe anyone in
the room can match that.”
Peter
reddened as Chiang San drew confirmations from around the room.
Peter knew he should be proud; few new tactics were registered these
days.
The
battle computer, as far as artificial intelligence went, was more of
a librarian than an officer. It didn’t invent tactics but sifted
through its catalog and calculated the best fit for the situation at
hand. Early on, when its memory banks were nearly empty, just about
anything became a registered tactic. As the database filled, not
only was it harder to think up something original, but there were
fewer opportunities to do so. Peter’s success was anachronistic
and as puzzling to himself as it was to others.
“I
myself have only two,” the colonel said. “Whereas I had thirty
wins in the Sim Test before I even made sergeant. Perhaps you could
explain this…inconsistency.”
“There’s
nothing at stake in the Sim Test,” Peter said. “It’s only a
game.”
“The
most important game, if you ever want one of these.” Chiang San
tapped the eagle pinned to his collar. “Or maybe you like getting
shot at.”
“It’s
not so bad,” Peter said. A look of shock passed over the colonel’s
face. He glanced at Peter, then into the glass in his hand. “That’s
strong balls,” he said confidentially to the wine. “I’m
surprised he’s lasted twenty-five days.”
“I—”
“I
don’t want your luck running out,” Chiang San continued, looking
at Peter. “I can’t take you off the roster, but I can…and I
do…order you to work on the Sim every chance you get. It can’t
be that hard. Just look at Vadiraj.”
“Sir?”
the sergeant asked, perking up at the sound of his name.
Chiang
San looked surprised, as if he had forgotten Vadiraj was in the
room. “Tell me again how many wins you have,” he said.
“One
thirty-seven, sir,” the sergeant replied proudly.
“One
thirty-two,” Chiang San corrected. Then, behind his hand, he said
to Peter, “Doesn’t count if you win the same battle twice.”
“If
I might ask, sir,” Peter said, hoping to sidetrack the
conversation, “how many losses have you had? In the field, I
mean.”
The
colonel glared at Peter, hard and sober.
“Only
generals lose battles, son,” he said. “The rest of us just fight
them. And if they lose, we don’t sit at this table. We lay out
there!” The colonel pointed his fork at the window, out to the
desolate black Drift. The fork trembled; he cast it to the table and
pushed to his feet. He raised his glass, wine slopping. “To fallen
brothers,” he boomed. The men all stood, glasses high.
“To
fallen brothers,” the young men roared, then grew still, their
thoughts turning to those they had lost.
— — —
The
last of Peter’s blue dots blinked out as a wave of red washed over
them. He had lost the Sim twenty minutes ago—his eighth of the
night—and was too tired to do anything but watch it play out.
“You’ll
have to try harder than that,” Chiang San said, walking into the
computer room. His combat suit was decorated with a stream of orange
koi-fish, but scored black, and it smelled of burned carbon.
“I
can’t crack this one,” Peter said.
The
colonel squinted at the terminal. “That the Battle of Oenopides-7?
I fought there, you know.”
“You
did?” Peter checked the date on the screen. “But that was
thirty-five years ago.”
“The
dates around here are screwy,” the colonel said offhandedly. He
set his helmet down and took a seat. The cold of space radiated from
his suit. “Government secrets and what all. Show me the playback.”
The
battle replayed at ten times speed—this time taking only three
minutes for the computer to annihilate him. Chiang San gave a
thoughtful grunt.
“You
played football, didn’t you?” he asked.
Peter
nodded.
“Well,
you need to stop.” The colonel ran the playback again. “Look at
that,” he said. “You rush in the moment the ball snaps. Nothing
covert there. Remember, the enemy doesn’t know anything about you
at the start of the battle. When they see you coming, they’ll
assume the worst, that this is a major attack and you’re a hundred
divisions strong. They’ll hole up in the best spots and wait. But
if you convince them you’re weak, they’ll find their confidence.
Lure them out of their cover and they’ll make a much better
target.
“What’s
this?” The colonel said incredulously, jabbing a thick-gloved
finger at the screen. “Did you just order a whole regiment forward
without knowing what’s to their north? These aren’t just dots on
a screen, Garvey. These are men like you and me. Men who are
counting on you to bring them home alive.
“Try
this battle again and forget everything you know about it. Use your
sensor pods and your scouts to flush the Riel out, and double-check
everything before you move. The Riel are fast, so don’t trust
their reported position. If the dot isn’t solid red, then you
haven’t got eyes on them.