War of Alien Aggression 5 Cozen's War (4 page)

As Ram turned to shut them all inside along with humanity’s greatest secret, he ticked the meeting's attendees off as he saw them. The leaders of the F-151 squadrons were here, grim-faced. Chief Horcheese brought the two cherries he'd asked for. They probably wanted to know what the heck they were doing at a command level briefing. Redsuits don’t usually get briefed on anything; they just get told to fix it. Lt. Commanders Medoc, and Max looked almost expressionless. Ram hadn’t seen them since before their ship had been built. They’d looked happier then.

Finally, after closing the hatch and the two doors and sealing them all in, he turned again, returning a nod from Commander Pai of
Arbitrage
before letting his eyes fall on the impenetrable helmet visor of the figure in the exosuit. His own warped and tiny reflection looked back at him before gloved hands reached up and flipped the four latches on the helmet. You could tell which of them in that cage already knew who was under that helmet. They were the only ones whose eyes weren’t glued as she lifted the helmet off.

Disgraced Staas Company VP and former 2-Star Privateer Admiral, Matilda Witt looked the same in an exosuit as in anything else, like she was squaring off to fight with whomever she faced. The helmet mussed her hair and her face displayed some scorn for it. "Regrettable," she said, removing a glove and running fingers through her hair. "But necessary." Cozen poured and put a glass in her hand.
 

The fighter pilots hadn’t moved, but a darkness had come over their gaze, the same one Ram had seen in their eyes when they looked at Squidies. Just like Squidies, she was something they wanted to kill. In her months commanding most of the F-151 squadrons, she'd been successful against the Squidies at the cost of her pilots’ lives. Ram didn’t blame them for wanting her dead. She’d killed plenty of them.
 

Lt. Commander Dana Sellis couldn't keep quiet when she saw Matilda Witt. "What the hell is she doing here?" Dana’s arms and legs twitched and flexed under her jumpsuit as if she was about to strike. "She’s a bloody traitor!" Witt simply smiled at her in a patronizing manner. Dana implored Cozen. "She helped the Squidies try to kill you. She tortured
me
! She negotiated with the enemy on her own! Why isn’t she in prison?"

"
I spent six months on Corsica, dear. Is that exile enough for you?"
 

Harry Cozen stood. He said, "Matilda Witt is here and working with us because she’s part of our plan to end this war. She has been for some time. This plan can't work without her because she's the only human the enemy trusts. You
will
set any differences you have had with her aside for the success of this mission."

The fighter pilots formerly under Matilda Witt's command didn't look happy to see her, but Dana’s face had gone from bright red to deep purple with barely contained rage. Ram had never seen the veins on her forehead throb like wardrums before.

"
Lt. Commander Sellis..." Matilda Witt gave Dana a thin-lipped smile that was all the more eerie for being genuine. "I was so glad to hear you didn’t succumb to your injuries before being rescued." Witt drained the glass and wiped her lips with the back of her hand in a gesture Ram had never imagined her making. "My hat’s off to you for actually escaping under those conditions."
 

Dana continued to glare at Witt like her hate was a weapon. It bounced off Witt like arrows bounce off a tank.

"I’ll apologize more if that's what it takes for this mission to go off, but we’re all here cramped up in Harry’s little paranoia cage, meeting to discuss the cold-blooded extermination of an intelligent, spacefaring species. I think that trumps the personal issues, what say? So... If you don’t mind, I suggest we let pass the little things and get on with the business of killing all the Squidies, hmm? Since my dear, dear colleague, Harry bollixed all real chances of an
acceptable
peace agreement, that's the only option left."
 

Cozen started the scotch moving around the room then. "This mission I am about to brief you on has been in planning since three weeks after the Squidies first attacked on Moriah." Witt rolled her eyes, but Cozen continued. "Development of the required technologies has cost one
fifth
of the entire war budget to date.
This
is the most important mission of the entire war.
This
is the mission that ends it. We will deliver the coup de grace to our enemy using perhaps the most famous deception in human history: The Trojan Horse.

Chapter Five

Jordo regarded the 1.15 cubic meters of personal storage space allotted in the design of the Sky Jack with some contempt. The designers had placed it in a section that wouldn’t get ejected with the cockpit. But that wasn’t what made him whisper curses at it under his breath. It was the fact that it was only 1.15 bloody cubic meters and he couldn’t fill it.

Paladin said, "
That everything you own?"
 

Jordo straightened up on the top of the maintenance platform and looked down at his wingman three meters below. "That's it. Almost nothing."

Dirty said, "You packing?"

"
Like an Egyptian king," Paladin said. "You know how they put everything he needs in the tomb so when he gets wherever he’s going he’s got it?"
 

"
Pharaoh. That’s a Pharaoh," she said.
 

"Yeah
. We're getting equipped."
 

Jordo said, "I got nothing to put in here except two suit liners, two jumpsuits and one pair of griptops. Got a matchbox computer. Got Shafter’s
Manual of Exo-Atmospheric Combat Maneuvers
. Got the box my lieutenant's’ bars came in. That’s it. That’s the sum of my life right there. All of it."

"
We’ll be goin’ out in Sky Jack 223s," she said. "Don’t forget that. You get sent to kingdom come, then you’re going to show up in the baddest-ass ride they’ve ever seen."
 

The muscles on Paladin’s face now appeared to drape over his thick skull. For once he wasn’t frowning or cringing or trying to tie his forehead in a knot. "You know Cleeg," Jordo said, calling him by his family name, "I kind of thought you’d be bitchin’ about this mission."

"Nah
. I like being called Paladin and all, but I can’t keep up this heroic crap forever. I'm glad it’ll be over before I can fuck it up."
 

Holdout said. "I gotta run up to our quarters real quick and get something I forgot."

"What?" Gusher knew when he asked. He was already cracking up making some questionable gestures when Pooch came through the locks.
 

They were all laughing at a joke she hadn’t been there for. Pooch smiled at them anyway, and for an incidental second, they smiled back at her as she crossed the bay, but that moment was so clearly a result of her timing and nothing else that Jordo was relieved when it was over and all those awkward smiles faded.

Pooch said, "Don’t think just ‘cause you’ve got those fancy new fighters now it means we’re dropping our standing bet. My Hellcats are gonna be looking forward to having the Lancers pick up the tab next shore leave at Sagan or Deimos Station." The Hellcats had been sent out to die almost as many times as the Lancers so he was surprised to hear Pooch say that. He never expected her of all people to hide in denial.
 

The Lancers didn’t have anything to say about any future shore leave because they probably weren’t going to be there for it.

Jordo didn’t have to tell Paladin and Dirty and Gusher to piss off. They turned and drifted away to their fighters, and a few seconds later, Jordo lowered his voice. "Is that really what you came here to say, Pooch?"

She shook her head, and the shaggy hair growing in on the top of her fragile skull waved just a millimeter.
"
That’s what I told my squadron I came here to say." He nodded like he understood. "Are you packing all your personal shit?"
 

"
We’re going out like Pharaohs. Paladin’s idea."
 

"
I guess the Lancers don’t have any illusions about coming back," she said, and Jordo slid the storage compartment shut.
 

"
Do the Hellcats?"
 

"
I don’t...I don't know what to tell them. This plan it’s…it’s
just
like one of Matilda Witt’s plans. It’s suicidal."
 

"Your pilots aren’t nuggets. They’ve faced the enemy and seen their friends die nearly every day."

"It’s different now. You know what I’m talking about. The rumors. What do I tell them now? Half of them signed up to fight the war of alien aggression, Jordo. They signed up to kill Squidies and save Earth and now people are saying we started it. What the hell am I supposed to tell my pilots when they ask me?"

"They’ll still fly."

She said, "They’ll fly like shit if they don’t believe in what they’re doing.
Aerial Combat Maneuvers, like samurai fen-
"

"‘
...like samurai fencing and kung fu are an expression of self and will.
’ I remember Shafter’s handbook of exo-atmo combat maneuvers.
Don't listen to
alien propaganda," he told her. Not that he’d put anything past Harry Cozen, the man that came up with the idea to recruit pilots out of prison. "Your people flew today without any problems."
 

"
They flew sloppy. No
juice
. No…." She made a fisting gesture to show what she couldn’t say. "Shafter said a pilot flies by instinct and reflex and what they do depends on who they are inside."
 

"
Chapter One."
 

"
My pilots are empty inside, Jordo. They’re fucking empty. They don’t know why they’re flying. What the hell do I tell them?"
 

"I’m no speechwriter. The hell you asking me for?"

"Because."

"Because what?" he said.

"Because. Fine, I’ll say it. The Lancers got a shit deal. Even worse than us. The Lancers weren’t even supposed to survive their first mission. And still…still you go out there and fly and I know it’s not because they’ll shoot you if you don’t. You’re lazy, J. 'Jordo' Colt and it’s easier to let them shoot you than it is to go back out there to die, so I know it's not that. But you've got a reason. So that’s why I’m asking
you
. Because you Lancers got a reason you keep going out there like you do…no hesitation, nothing held back. Even after Staas Company and Harry Cozen shafted you.
I need to know what that reason is.
That’s why I’m here."

Jordo inhaled and then, let it out. "
They gotta decide who they’re going to be. That’s what the Lancers had to do. Don’t matter what came before. What are you going to be
now
? That’s all that matters. Lancer 1-2 a.k.a. John Cleeg? Murderer...a bloody home invader. John Cleeg was a real nightmare. But Paladin is different. Lancer 1-2, a.k.a.
Paladin
is a do-gooding mud-fucking hero that will put his plane between you and the Squidies when you’re down. Paladin won’t ever leave your wing. That’s who he is now. I gave him that name. Deal was, he had to live up to it. Every time he goes out there, that’s who he is. Because that’s who he chose to be."
 

"
My pilots ain’t convicts like the Lancers, Jordo."
 

"No. They’re mostly kids from lunar dust-bowl dome towns like you who saw a couple of Bitzers flying an airshow over their domes and signed up. They’re good people without bright futures, but they
have
futures, unlike us. That makes ‘em different, yeah, but it doesn’t matter. If we lose this war, then that’s it. The Squidies will kill us all. Especially if we actually did start it. So we gotta kill ‘em all, Pooch. Before they kill us. Even if the Lancers
could
walk away,
that’s
why we don’t. Tell your pilots they made their choice already and it’s too bad they don’t like it, but if they don’t go out there and fight with every gram of their beings and fiber of their wills then we might just lose this war. It doesn't matter for them how all this started. It only matters how it ends."
 

Chapter Six
 

Ram traded his company officers’ blue exosuit for one of the company marines’ new, semi-armored black suits. Lucy Elan had brought it for him. On the way out of his quarters, she’d said it was a loaner, not a gift and he had to return it without any holes. He’d laughed at that like it was a joke, but she hadn’t. That struck him as odd. Lucy hadn’t been at the briefing, but she had some idea what was going on. She knew where Ram was going and his chances of coming back. That new exosuit wasn’t any more likely to come back than he was.