The Swarm (29 page)

But the bigger question is: Why are they tunneling in the first place? Initially I thought they were simply turning the rock into a collision threat with Earth. Still possible. But another option is this: They've dug out and oxygenated this habitat inside an asteroid in order to breed and build their army. We don't know much about the Formic life cycle. Maybe they can achieve adulthood in a few months. And if their minds are led and guided by a Hive Queen, they might not require much training before being given a weapon and ordered into combat. Maybe she can instantly give them the skills of veteran soldiers.

I hope I'm wrong. Because if I'm not, they can replenish their forces faster than we can kill them. That gives them the victory. They'll win by attrition, wearing us down with a continual onslaught of fresh recruits that we cannot match in numbers. Game over. We lose.

One note on the armor: Tunnels will be narrow. You can't allow the armor to snag on surface walls and restrict your forward progress. Shoulders, knees, and elbows pose the most risk. You may want to round a few corners of the individual pieces to avoid snags. Also, coat all the armor in a flexible resin. No exposed metal. It might strike rock, and you don't want sparks in an atmosphere of pure oxygen and hydrogen!

Old Soldier

Mazer exited the lunar shuttle via the docking tube and found a young female lieutenant waiting for him at the gate. She came to attention and saluted. “Captain Rackham. I'm Lieutenant Prem Chamrajnagar. I'm your appointed attorney for your court-martial.”

Mazer grabbed the safety rail to steady himself. Gravity here was only one-sixth of what it was on Earth, but it was far more than he was used to and his legs felt heavy and weak.

“Easy,” the woman said, catching his rucksack as it slipped off his shoulder. “You still have your space legs, sir. No rush. They advise you take a moment before setting out. You've been in the Black for a long time.” She set the rucksack on the ground beside him and gave him a moment.

“Thank you,” Mazer said, clutching the railing and spreading his feet apart a little to widen his stance. “I never realized I was so heavy before.”

“Be glad they didn't take you straight to Earth,” the lieutenant said, smiling.

Mazer regarded her. The single bar on her uniform meant she was junior grade. Her expression was formal and military, but she wasn't exactly the seasoned attorney he was hoping for. “Don't take this the wrong way, Lieutenant, but you look younger than I am.”

“I'm twenty, sir. So, yes, I am younger. And petite. And female. Three strikes against me, I suppose.”

“That's no strikes against you,” Mazer said. “I was merely expecting someone a little older. When did you graduate from law school?”

“Two years ago, sir. With honors.”

“You don't have to keep calling me ‘sir.' Mazer will suffice. Law school takes three years. How old were you when you started your undergraduate degree?”

“Fourteen, sir.”

“What a fun adolescence you must have had. Keeping with the time line, I can only assume you went to junior prom while still in the womb and that elementary school happened prior to conception.”

“I'm young, sir. But I'm capable.”

He could see it was true. She had an air of confidence about her—a self-assuredness that didn't come off as cocky. She simply knew she could get things done because that's how she had always operated.

“If it makes you feel any better,” said Chamrajnagar, “it's unlawful to assign counsel that hasn't been deemed competent by the Judge Advocate General.”

“Where is that law written?” Mazer asked.

“Article 27b of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I can recite the paragraph if you wish.”

“That won't be necessary. How many times have you served as lead counsel?”

“JAG appointed you a single attorney, sir.”

“How generous of him. All right, how many times have you defended someone?”

“Including your case?”

Mazer nodded.

“One.”

“You're not instilling a lot of confidence here, Lieutenant. I thought you said you graduated two years ago.”

“I did, sir. We shadow members of the JAG Corps for two years before we get our own cases. I've written a lot of briefs if that makes you feel any better.”

“Not really.”

“You can formally request another attorney, sir. I can recommend a few senior officers who may be more to your liking.”

“You'd step aside that easily?”

“This is your defense, sir. Your attorney is there to advise and assist you, not to dictate. If you do not want me to assist you, then yes, it's in your best interest for me to step aside. You must trust your attorney completely. The worst attorney is the unwanted attorney. But please don't take my willingness to remove myself as a sign of disinterest. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was not assigned to your case. I volunteered.”

“Why?”

“Because abuse of power like that exhibited by Colonel Vaganov will lose us this war, particularly when it jettisons good soldiers who should be leading.”

“What makes you think I'm a good soldier?” Mazer asked. “Or a leader for that matter. You don't know me.”

“I know you fought with the MOPs inside the Formic scout ship during the first war. I know you were instrumental in winning that war. I know you willingly agreed to avoid the spotlight so that the MOPs could take sole credit and thus prove to the world that a diverse, international military force like the MOPs is the best chance we have to defeat the Formics, thus paving the way for the formation of the International Fleet.”

“Who gave you that information?” Mazer asked. “None of that is in my service records.”

“There is quite a bit missing from your service records,” said Chamrajnagar. “The IF has done a very good job of removing all traces of the truth. Had Colonel Vaganov taken the time to dig a little, he might have figured out who you are exactly.”

“You have a very active imagination, Lieutenant.”

“So you're denying you helped win the war?” Chamrajnagar asked. “You're denying you served with the MOPs? You're still protecting the Fleet?”

“Or maybe I'm denying it because it's all nonsense.”

“A vigorous denial is as good as a confirmation,” said Chamrajnagar.

“Did they teach you that in law school?”

She smiled.

Mazer let go of the bar. His legs still felt weak, but he was feeling steadier now. He hefted his rucksack and moved toward the end of the gate, taking slow deliberate steps. She fell into step beside him.

“We'll take a rover,” she said. “It's a long walk to the front gate.”

She moved ahead of him and climbed up into one of the mini rovers parked nearby, taking the wheel.

Mazer hesitated. “Those are for driving the elderly around. I can walk.”

“It's a long terminal, sir. If you walk in your current state, I'll have to keep stopping to help you up off the floor.” She gestured to the empty seat next to her. “Taking the rover will do us both a favor.”

Mazer glanced down the terminal. It
was
a long distance. And his legs weren't up for a lengthy hike. Frowning, he tossed his rucksack in the back and climbed up next to her. She pulled away and stuck to the rover path.

“What do you know about my case?” Mazer asked.

“I know the charges that have been filed against you.”

“An extensive list, I'm guessing.”

“So extensive it smells rotten. Did you really strike an MP with an iron bar?”

“Is that what Nardelli is saying?”

“He got twelve stitches in his head. I've seen the photos filed with the police report. Pretty ghastly.”

“He gave that wound to himself,” Mazer said.

“He struck himself with an iron bar?”

“There was no bar involved. Iron or otherwise. He hurt himself attacking me. It's quite humorous in retrospect. He launched at me. I put something in his way. He wasn't wearing a helmet. End of story. I never touched him. He'll have a hard time providing any forensics.”

“And let me guess,” Chamrajnagar said, “if you had touched him, he would have needed a lot more than twelve stitches.”

He looked at her and found her smiling. “You're mocking me,” he said.

“No. It just seemed like the testosterone thing to say. But that's not who Captain Mazer Rackham is, I see.”

“Disappointed?”

“Relieved actually. And I wouldn't worry about Nardelli's testimony. I've done a little digging. The man's not a credible witness. If his deposition is presented as testimony, we'll obliterate him.”

“No objections here,” said Mazer.

“So you're agreeing to my representing you?”

“I'm agreeing to listen and participate in this conversation. I'm stuck on this rover with you. I don't have much choice.”

Chamrajnagar nodded. “Fair enough. Issue number one, the charges filed against you are rather serious. The most serious of which is leaking classified information.”

Mazer chuckled. “Easily dismissed. I shared private information in an IF forum. The intel didn't belong to the IF. Nor was it classified. The IF didn't even know about it. Vaganov was just miffed he couldn't take credit for it. Which leads us to issue number two, the presiding officer at my court-martial is a personal friend of Colonel Vaganov.”

Chamrajnagar glanced at him, surprised. “How did you know that?”

“Vaganov is smart,” Mazer said. “He knows he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. And yet he was completely confident that I'd be burned. So much so that he was fairly brutal with my confinement. Plus you labeled the first issue as issue number one, so I assumed there would be others. I was hoping I was wrong.”

“Well, you're right. Sort of. The president of the court is Colonel Michio Soshi from Japan. He's the only officer on the panel who's from the Judge Advocate General's Corps. The other four members of the jury will be officers of senior rank. So five total. Soshi has a reputation for being merciless. His cases end in discharge far more frequently than those run by other judges. They call him the Hatchet.”

“That's comforting,” Mazer said. “And Vaganov and this Colonel Soshi, they're close?”

“They run in the same circles. They have connections from the past, but I wouldn't call them close personal friends. More like allies. Which hurts us because it's harder for us to prove a conflict of interest. If they had roomed together in college, we'd be in a good position. What we have instead is conjecture. So they've probably committed to protect each other, but we'll have a hard time proving it.”

“Regardless,” Mazer said, “due to their previous connections we should file a motion that Soshi recuse himself.”

Chamrajnagar nodded. “I've already typed it up.”

Mazer raised an eyebrow. “You've put a lot of time into this. When did you pick up my case?”

“As soon we got wind of the charges. I've been working on it after hours.”

“And you're doing this because you've dug up some misinformation that leads you to believe I'm a war hero?”

“No, sir. I'm doing this because I think removing you from uniform would decrease our chances with the Formics.”

“Will the motion work?” Mazer asked. “Will Soshi recuse himself?”

“Probably not. He has to approve the action, and if he's doing a favor for Colonel Vaganov, Soshi will want to maintain control.”

“So I'm stuck with a biased judge. What kind of judicial system is this?”

“A young one. The IF has only been around for a few years, and its member nations all have very different approaches to military justice. Russia, Indonesia, the US, Libya. Everyone had their own way of conducting military tribunals. And Russia's idea of military justice is probably a far cry from what you saw in New Zealand. Multiply that by however many member nations there are now, and you've got a rather convoluted military code of justice. It's constantly being updated. Don't expect an IF court-martial to run as smoothly as it should.”

“There's something else,” said Mazer. “Vaganov worked it so that a physician recommended me for light duty. I think he did it so that it could be argued that I had no business conducting the field tests in the first place.”

“Did you pee in the colonel's coffee?” Chamrajnagar asked. “He really wants to see you gone.”

“He's worried I'll blow the whistle on a lucrative arrangement he has with Gungsu Industries.”

“Ah,” Chamrajnagar said. “That does complicate things.”

“Still want to take my case?”

“We'll appeal the physician's recommendation,” Chamrajnagar said. “We'll get you reevaluated by another doctor, someone who will say you're perfectly fit and good to go. If we're prepared for that, we need not worry. Any other traps that I need to be made aware of? As your attorney I need to know every angle they'll use against us.”

“I haven't agreed to make you my attorney yet,” Mazer said.

“No, but you're warming up to me.”

“What about a motion to dismiss?” Mazer asked.

“I've typed that up as well. But I doubt Soshi will drop the whole thing, especially if there are shady business deals in the background. They can't allow you to walk free. They need to silence you, which they'll do by discrediting you. Hence the court-martial. They'll make it so your voice doesn't matter and carries no weight. Which is why Vaganov is trying so desperately to gather evidence against you.”

“There is no evidence against me,” said Mazer. “The court can't prove criminality. I filed a formal objection before the mission. Vaganov deleted it, but I have to believe it can be recovered. Plus I have a vid of the incident. And I have at least half a dozen people who will testify on my behalf, including the officer who lost his leg. There is no case. Vaganov knew that from the beginning. He knew the court would acquit based on insufficient evidence. It has to. He's only doing this so that Soshi can end my career, which Soshi can do easily. Even if I'm acquitted, the court will file an official letter of reprimand that will forever remain on my permanent record. They will claim that my conduct, while not criminal, verged on bringing discredit to military forces, and that for the good of the service they recommend that I be removed from my current position and transferred to an area more suited for my capabilities, where my new unit commander can determine any nonjudicial punishment.”