Authors: Bennett R. Coles
Virtues of War (46 page)
“Come on, let’s get behind those trees.”
They’d barely taken a step when they were pulled clear off the ground by a mighty, invisible force. Like a titanic wind, the force carried them forward. Trees at the edge of the park leaned inward, leaves tearing from their branches and flying like bullets toward the copse. As Kete watched, helplessly hurtling forward, the close-knit trees cracked apart, the trunks split open as bark and shards tumbled inward into a dazzling oblivion. The smallest trunks were sheared from their roots and toppled into what could only be a collapsing jump gate.
The force died away as quickly as it had arisen. Kete tumbled to the ground and slid against the flattened grass. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the remains of the copse, climbing over the obscenely twisted wood. He looked for the bronze horseshoe amidst the earthen rubble, but found nothing.
Frantically he threw aside the piles of rubble, losing himself in sheer panic before his rational mind retook control, and forced him to stop.
The jump gate was gone.
Somehow it had failed, but there were five more attacks currently underway at other strategic locations on Earth. As he forced himself to climb out of the wrecked trees and survey the acres of burning waterfront, he consoled himself with the knowledge that the overarching mission still would succeed. Now all he needed to do was escape. The jump gate over the lake was probably collapsing, as well, but he could retreat to Katja Emmes’s apartment.
Breeze was just picking herself up off the ground. Her uniform was in tatters, her face a mask of fear. She was no longer useful—indeed, she was now a liability. He walked over to her, opening his arms in an inviting hug. She gasped for air, her eyes shining as she stepped toward his embrace.
Just as her warm body pressed against his, he heard a faint crackling sound. The air shimmered nearby, and as he blinked to clear his vision a human form in a dark, helmeted suit seemed to grow out of nothing. The human was compact in form, and through a transparent sheen over her face she spotted him with large, dark eyes.
She isn’t dead.
Strangely, he wasn’t surprised.
His right hand was around Breeze’s back and ripping out her pistol even as Emmes drew her own holstered weapon. Kete wrapped his left arm around Breeze’s throat and spun her around to use her as a human shield. Emmes lowered into a combat stance, both hands steady on her weapon.
Kete moved as much as possible behind Breeze, and shifted the pistol to press it against her torso.
“Get back, Emmes,” he said, “or I kill her.”
* * *
Katja sized up the targets. Breeze was tall enough that the Centauri spy could shield himself behind her, but all she needed was a steady enough glimpse of one of his vitals to take him down. His threat almost made her laugh out loud.
“Please do, Centauri. Then I’ll have a clear shot.”
While still in the Bulk, she’d realized that the sense of falling was the gravitational pull of a massive object appearing nearby. Having been close to gravi-torpedoes and Jack’s infamous Dark Bomb, she’d recognized what she was approaching. Now here on the brane, she saw the path of destruction pointing to the mass of broken trees behind her two targets.
Armstrong
’s torpedo run had worked.
A new, familiar roar began to grow in strength to the south, and in her peripheral she saw the brilliant exhausts of Terran missiles flashing by overhead. Explosions in the air far behind her indicated the destruction of the AAR invasion force. The threat to Terra was over.
There were still loose ends, though.
Breeze wore an expression of pure shock, and Katja wondered if that would eventually morph into betrayal. Or was she part of the Centauri plan, and just playing the role of victim? She searched Breeze’s eyes for any of their usual cunning. For once, she saw none.
Her weapon remained trained to the side of Breeze’s head, just waiting for that kill shot. Looking hard for an opening, she became aware of something new—something in the Cloud. It might be dangerous to split her focus, but suddenly she had to know. She reached out with her mind.
For a moment he looked stunned, and she sensed surprise, but the response came from a disciplined mind.
Silence, both in the world and in the Cloud. Breeze’s gaze flicked back and forth between Katja’s weapon and the gun against her side. The Centauri didn’t move. Finally she heard him in the Cloud.
His family was inside that house.
His wife and children.
Rupa, Olivia, Jess.
She felt the shockwave of the blast that knocked her backward, watched as her body smacked down on the ground. Felt the agony of loss, the growing rage as his hand moved to close around her throat.
In her real vision, she saw the pistol pull back from Breeze’s side. The Centauri—his real name was Kete, she now knew—pushed Breeze gently away and stepped clear. Katja followed him with her weapon, willing herself to shoot. He dropped his pistol and stood with his hands at his sides.
She stared into his dark features, barely remembering the hand at her throat and the shadowy form that had loomed over her as her life bled out on Abeona. Then she thought of another face, an Army face. A face sodden with dirt, sweat, and blood, half burned away by Centauri swarm-bots. A face that thought nothing of dying for Terra. A face she would never see again.
“Mercy is a founding principle of Centauria,” she said aloud, pulling herself back from the Cloud, “and I’d have expected nothing less from you.” She saw his expression soften momentarily, until he truly looked into her eyes.
“But this is Terra,” she said.
She pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Then twice more just to be sure.
For a brief, dazzling moment, she sensed something from the Cloud.
Relief. And homecoming.
Breeze gasped as the body collapsed, then stifled a scream as she saw Katja point the weapon at her. She actually fell to her knees as Katja approached.
“Please,” she said, “I didn’t know anything. He took me as a hostage.” Her hands came up to cover her face as Katja loomed over her. “Please don’t kill me!”
Katja relished the feeling of raw power that coursed through her body, and stood in silence for a moment over her target. Then, efficiently, she reversed the pistol in her hand and swung it down in a swift strike. The metal thudded against Breeze’s skull and knocked her flat onto the ground.
Katja kicked her onto her back and knelt down on top of her, pinning Breeze’s legs with her own and leaning a forearm against Breeze’s right arm. The gun she pressed up against Breeze’s chin. Breeze’s eyes rolled from the attack as blood trickled from her hair, but in a moment she regained her senses, and stared up at Katja.
Katja almost smiled.
“I’m not going to kill you, Breeze,” she said. “I’m going to do something much better. I’m going to reveal you for the traitor you are. Then I’m going to watch you squirm in front of all the worlds.
“And then I’m going to watch you hang.”
Thomas was already turning away as his sergeant gave the squads the final dismissal order. They were a competent bunch of troopers, the twenty men and women assigned as the security force aboard
Admiral Bowen
, and they didn’t need him hovering over their every movement.
The day’s boarding drills had gone well enough, especially considering he was still thinking with Corps tactics and signals he’d learned more than a decade ago. Enough had changed since he’d last worn a green jumpsuit that the next few weeks were going to be a self-taught firehose-in-mouth of information.
A few quick words to the sergeant about tomorrow’s schedule, and Thomas left the training area. A modern cruiser,
Bowen
had the luxury of a dedicated space for the ship’s security team to train and conduct meetings. As he made his way up the decks Thomas began to wish the designers had thought to add the luxury of an elevator. Six months planetside, living the life of a wealthy dilettante, had taken a shocking toll on his fitness, making him very grateful that his role as an officer could be largely supervisory if he wanted it to be.
Because that’s all he was now: Sublieutenant Kane, the new kid dropped on board as a last-second replacement as
Bowen
deployed for war. He hadn’t missed the surprised expressions when his new troopers had seen him for the first time—they’d no doubt been expecting a young snotter right out of training. The only logical explanation for so old a subbie was that he’d been commissioned from the ranks, and Thomas had done nothing to dissuade that notion.
With
Bowen
under radio silence due to the outbreak of hostilities, no one could uncover the truth for at least a few weeks.
The ship’s other officers seemed equally ambivalent, too busy with their exhausting wartime watches to worry much about the new Corps guy. The lieutenants afforded him slightly less disrespect than they did the other subbies, and he’d learned quickly not to make a habit of hanging out in the wardroom. And so, inevitably, he found himself staring at the door to his new home—the four-person mess deck known as Club Sub.
Thomas closed his eyes as the door slid shut behind him, rubbing his temples wearily. At least he wasn’t standing bridge watches. Those poor bastards were already suffering under strain of running at full combat readiness, while perpetually undermanned. The
Admiral Bowen
had been deployed with barely seventy percent of the crew embarked.
As he sat down on the single settee and slowly began to remove his boots, he glanced at two kids—two of the other subbies—chatting quietly between the sleeping berths.
No, he wasn’t the captain. He wasn’t the XO. He wasn’t even a Line officer anymore. As soon as the battle over Longreach had concluded, he’d been ordered down the spar to the cruiser that’d supported him, been informed that the ship was departing, and that he would be filling one of the vacant positions.
So here he was, Sublieutenant Kane, security detachment commander. Under his charge were twenty Astral Corps troopers—less than half an actual platoon—with the responsibility for boarding enemy ships and repelling enemy boarders.
He sighed deeply, then immediately regretted it as his nose filled with the typical stench of Club Sub. No matter what the ship, subbies were never too bothered about regular hygiene or cabin cleanliness. Clothes were scattered around half-open lockers and the sink was barely visible under the dried toothpaste and shavings. As the senior sublieutenant, he figured he should probably instill some discipline.
“Guys,” he said, “this place hums. Which one of you has the slow leak out of his ass?” He was greeted by tired laughter as the subbies—Chen and Alex—sidled over.
“Can’t you just get some troopers to do it?” Alex asked. “I thought you guys loved rolling in the shit.”
Remembering that these kids were barely out of training, Thomas tried to recall the mindset.
“Sure, but even we know our Humane Convention rights.” That elicited another laugh, although no one moved to actually clean anything up.
He tried another tack. “What are you guys working on?”
Chen showed him an info-pad. “We have to finish our reqs by the end of the week, so we can start full time on our bridge tickets.”
“But everyone’s so busy they don’t have time to help us,” Alex added. “We’re just comparing notes.”
Thomas remembered the endless slog of getting on-board training requirements, or “reqs,” signed off between busy bridge watches. He and his friend Sean Duncan—who had apparently just been made a commander and given his own destroyer—had groaned for weeks under the strain of doing their training packages during the Dog Watch in Sirius while standing one-in-three bridge watches in the old
Victoria
. Their saving grace had been
Victoria
’s XO, Lieutenant Eric Chandler, who’d made it his personal mission to get Thomas and Sean trained up and useful for the captain.
Bowen
’s XO, apparently, wasn’t stepping into the same role. Just because the whole ship thought of him as the new Corps subbie, though, didn’t mean Thomas wasn’t still command qualified.
He stretched. “What req are you working on?”
“Weapon safety firing ranges.”
He took the info-pad and glanced at the list of Astral weapons for which the subbies needed to memorize ranges, safety corridors, and firing sequences. He picked the first one—long-range anti-ship missiles—and rattled off the required info.
Chen and Alex stared at him in shock.
“You want some help with this?” he asked.
They nodded.
He stood up. “Then first of all, help me clean up this shit-pit. I’ll do the sink, if you guys get rid of all this gash.” He gestured broadly at all the clothes and personal items strewn around. “And somebody find an air freshener.”
“I have cologne spray,” Chen offered.
“No, it just masks the smell, and then mixes with it. This place will stink like a whorehouse.”
Laughter always lifted spirits, and as they cleaned Thomas kept up a wry banter with the kids, easily delving into his sordid subbie past whenever he felt a bit of gutter humor was required. By the time Club Sub was clean and he was sitting down to go through reqs, Thomas was smiling genuinely, and he saw matching expressions shining back at him from the subbies.