Fort Liberty, Volume Two (21 page)

She presses her lips together, cautious, as if sensing where his mind is going. “We have much to share. Enriched human intelligence, drawing from the power of the collective, will be able to solve the problems in your current scientific theories without effort. This theoretical engine system, given to Niri in images by those who sent her to us, is one we now understand and have already improved upon. Enriched humans will conquer scientific challenges at a much faster rate, allowing you to bridge the distance between galaxies, and cross the universe if you choose. But for you to accomplish great things, such as colonization, and interplanetary civilization, human-on-human war must end.”

“You want us to colonize other solar systems? For you?”

She seems puzzled by that. “For
yourselves
. We are a collective, a species with no individuals in the way you understand them. We have no ego, and no greed, no desire to conquer. We do not want mindless hosts, slave creatures to mirror our cave bound society. We would derive nothing from this. We cannot function in the way that you do amongst yourselves, as individuals. We do not want to. We have no lust for procreation, no hunger for food, no skill in governing the biological aspects of your existence that you manage so efficiently on your own. We cannot physically appreciate your instincts, many of which are necessary for your existence. You survive as individuals, and we respect that. We want you to succeed, to create healthy new worlds, and take us to them, not as masters, or servants, but as partners. We thirst for more knowledge, for the experience you can have, but we cannot. It is help we are offering you, friendship, and the opportunity to advance to a new version of humanity, one that will no longer tear itself apart.”

He stares at her. In this moment, he hates her. The ferocity of it burns inside his chest, because of what he’s done, because of what he’s been told, and what he trusted was the truth. The entire basis of his service, and his life, has just been reduced to being an unwilling participant in a plot to introduce this
thing
to the human race.

And, God knows, her arguments are persuasive. Wasted on a soldier, surely, but more than enough to convince an entire planet of corporate fools---who already consider themselves so enlightened---that this is the next step in human evolution, and it includes as much profit as they can bleed from all those new breakthroughs she’s going to give them, all the unimaginable treasure they’re going to cram into the improved ships she’s going to help them design. She’ll have all the volunteers she needs, her own private space corps of ‘enriched’ humans to shuttle her from world to world.

Thus the clarification on violence. It doesn’t get eliminated. No, she’s saying it stays. It just gets limited to the ‘protection of others’, which he knows from experience can mean absolutely anything.

Maybe the elite decision makers of Red Filter have considered that. Maybe they haven’t. Either way, no one asked his opinion because no one gives a shit what he thinks. That much is clear.

Humanity,
his
humanity, the only one he knows, the one that rose from the dust of Earth, and stood alone, flawed, vicious, but still heir to great empires, and starry poets, and eternal questions it had the right to answer on its own… it’s all disappearing right over the edge of a cliff, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it.

Already gone.

He stands in front of her, forced to recognize it, and unable to respond, his fingers forming loose fists, numb. This is what Kazak, and whoever hired him, didn’t understand. They thought this could be curbed by force. At any cost. Kill everyone. Destroy it, rather than allow someone else to own it.

It doesn’t work like that.

Force has limits.

You can kill individuals, but you can’t kill ideas, or wipe out the desire to pursue them. He could break with ethos right now, and take out Niri, based solely on his instinct, and then what? Destroy the station? Kill all of the gifted—most of them still kids? There’s got to be another dozen test subjects like her still on Earth, waiting to be extracted by another team just like his. Should he kill all the new ones too? Children? Torch the cave? Find a way to destroy the colony, all the unknown miles of it, all the portions that exist underwater.

Start yet another war. For what?

This is no hostile invasion. This thing was invited in. The powers that be spent decades pursuing it. They invested their money, and his blood, and it’s not going back in the box. First contact, a grand new partnership between humans and BIO227, a glorious path to the stars.

Agree. Disagree. Doesn’t matter. He took an oath to defend the helpless, not to make their decisions for them.

“Why did you tell me this?” he asks, wishing she hadn’t, as if he can somehow get back to the moment he didn’t know.

She gazes at him, and again, it’s like she’s listening. Then she looks away, back to her windows. “Niri believes you are a hero.”

“She’s wrong.”

The woman puts her hand on the glass again, fingers stroking along its surface, a subtle smile crooking her lips. “We will see.”

 

The space is tiny, with a solitary fluorescent light glowing above her, and the walls floating in murk. There’s a stool beside the bed, and he sits on it, realizing after a moment that he can hear her breathing.

He listens. And for a while that works, the soft intake and exhale.

A rhythm. A lifeline.

He leans forward, head bowed, hands folded between his knees.
You fight those among your own kind who have no social conscience, who kill without mercy, whose lust for power overrides all obligation to life, and greater society
.

He grimaces.

Petra draws breath, a whisper, almost soundless, the rise of her chest hidden by the sheet.

Images come, her hands grasping his armor, her blood leaking through torn fabric, the unconscious flutter of her eyelids as he held her.

You defend humans from other humans.

He’s numb, and the weight of years seems heavier, inescapable, and purposeless. Save Earth. Rebuild it. But rebuild it to serve who? Or what? It’s the question he should have asked the men who recruited him all those years ago, though they would have shut him down, told him to mind his fucking place.

To those who recruit, the fine print on the contracts is irrelevant because the purpose is all around, and it’s obvious. Defend civilization. Provide the conditions for things to improve. Be the one on the battlefield who represents what’s still good in us, who distinguishes the aggressors from the defenders, who preserves what infrastructure remains, who abhors unnecessary slaughter, who treats the wounded, gives food and shelter.

Get past that, get to be one of the guys who actually do the work, and there’s no time for questioning the big picture. Missions take their toll, and men become brutal, creased faces, and coarse beards, restless, and eager for combat, those strict ROEs that protect civilians sometimes a hindrance.

Rise in the ranks, and the adrenaline-fueled business of war becomes pure mathematics, ruthless when it comes to error, a science governed by the distances on maps, the speed vehicles, of aircraft, of a team moving through the rubble, the effective ranges of weapons, the rate of travel for projectiles, the time it takes to bleed out from a stomach wound.

He doesn’t remember any other way of thinking, any other version of himself. It’s automatic. There’s no switch for seeing the silver lining. No trust when it comes to what’s coming next, and maybe it’s all for the best. He sees the worst case, like all who suffer the nightmares, and the memories, who still partially exist in the places they’ve left behind.

It seems idiotic now, that he ever genuinely believed Red Filter corporations were trying to fix it, that they had some ethical solution, a miracle plan. Of course, they’re not saving humanity. They’re altering it for profit. They’re not bringing peace. They’re investing in the idea that humans aren’t capable of it. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does.

A fucking knife in the back.

“Who beat the hell outta you?” Petra’s voice cuts through the thought, a harsh whisper. “Looks like you just got bested, though I think it’s unlikely. More of a black moment, maybe… the kind that settles on such as you.”

He looks at her, finding that she hasn’t moved, just opened her eyes, warm and glittering, moisture crystallized on her lashes. She presses her lips together, considering his silence. “You got bested, or what?”

“It’s good to see you too,” he says, forcing a soft smile for her benefit.

“They’re shipping you back in chains?” she asks. “Because I’ve got a bolt cutter, and one track left, though it coughs.”

“I’m staying here.”

She smiles at that, flushed, almost girlish. Then she catches herself and looks away, trying to bring the cynic back. “You still a colonel, or are you planning a life of Red Filter crime?”

“I’m responsible for this station now.”

Her gaze returns, her eyebrows peaked. “You impressed them with all this damage? Maybe you should have burned it to the ground, get yourself named Emperor, and erase my convictions.”

“I’m keeping you here.”

“What?”

“Something’s happened.”

“I can’t be kept places.”

“Petra---”

“I’m your prisoner now? Who---”

“Niri has been… taken over.”

Petra hesitates, her expression changing. “What are you talking about?”

“Something’s living here, in the caves. It’s native to Mars. It’s intelligent. It’s very intelligent, sentient. Niri was designed to communicate with it. She did that, and she’s not herself anymore.”

He can see the horror in her face. She cycles through emotions he can’t read, unable to speak until the anger takes over for her. “What did you let them do?” She cries. “How could you let them do it?”

She tosses her sheet and pushes off the bed to confront him, full of irrational fury, something he’s seen only when a specific nerve is touched.

Voss stands his ground, catching her before she can swing, or kick him. “Petra,” he says softly. “Stop it.”

“You let them do it. This is what they do. They take everything. They destroy everything. She’s a girl, but to those vicious murderers, she’s nothing. She’s nothing. They’ll use her, and rip her apart, fiber by fiber. They’ll kill her, and they’ll leave her body broken.”

“Hey.” He grabs her wrists but holds them gently, because she’s not talking about him. She’s not even talking about the NRM. She’s talking about the life she’s led, and the attack that left her childless, and a little black-haired girl who is always going exist as Niri in some way.

“Come back to me,” he says.

She folds inward, grabbing onto him for support, security, whatever he represents in her Copernican sphere of attractions and repulsions. He slides his arms around her, knowing what he’s about to do is ethically murky, and carries a high risk for both of them.

“She trusts you,” he continues. “She trusts me, and she trusts Logan. I need you to help me sort this. I need you to help find out if she’s still there, and if she can be brought back. I need to know what we’re dealing with inside this station, and in those caves, and in the NRM.”

Petra takes a moment to breathe, think.

He waits.

Then she nods against his shoulder. “You think she’s still there?”

“Logan thinks she is.”

“And you want to get her back?”

“Yes.”

“And defend against new attacks?”

“That too.”

“With me as what? Head of lying and thievery?”

“Chief of Procurement,” he says, holding her for longer than he needs. “Sounds better.”

“Sounds tied-down. What about my independence?”

Voss notices that she hasn’t pulled away either. “I don’t think it’s in jeopardy. Do you?”

She doesn’t answer, tucking herself in just a little tighter. “What about my crew. You going to have this entire station run by criminals making illegal money on the side?”

“Maybe.”

“Strange alliance.”

“History is full of those.”

She goes quiet, allowing the silence to express things she’ll never tell him.

He understands the place they’re in, and perhaps there are no real words, certainly none that he knows, but there is weightlessness to the moment, an answer to all of the sharp, broken pieces, and the purposelessness that narrows the seeable world.

“Okay,” she says. “We’re allied… again.”

She slides her hand up around his neck, raising herself so that her lips brush against his, softness after pain, pulling him down into it. He lets her hair slip through his fingers, and then traces them down her back, letting her do as she will, in the way she wills it.

Questionable captain.

God-awful spy.

Alive and breathing because he wouldn’t let her go.