CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Still nothing from Inverness, Admiral,” Lieutenant Mastroianni, Ishtar’s communications officer, said respectfully as Ishtar and her consorts decelerated toward the star named Scotia at twelve hundred gravities.
Murphy’s flagship and her consorts had dropped sublight 3.6 billion kilometers from the star, approximately the same as Pluto’s distance from Sol. After almost five hours of deceleration, their velocity was down to 86,700 KPS and the range to Scotia was “only” 1.85 billion kilometers. That was still over 102 light-minutes, a bit more than twenty percent greater than Saturn’s distance from Sol, but Ishtar had been hailing the planet ever since her arrival.
And no one had said a single word back.
“Won’t be any good news when we get there,” O’Hanraghty said from his station at the control holo.
“Less bad may be more good, in a way,” Callum said from a bank of displays behind the chief of staff. He had no duties in his flag lieutenant’s capacity at the moment, so he’d been assigned to back up the chief of staff at Tactical as a learning assignment.
“If that makes any sense,” he added now. “Which it doesn’t. At first.”
O’Hanraghty muttered something under his breath as Murphy walked around the holo tank, a cup of coffee in one hand. The display showed the system’s five inner rocky planets close to the red dwarf primary. TF 1705 was a blinking blue arrow following a dashed course toward Inverness, the lone colony world.
Holo projections of Commodore Pokhla Sherzai, Captain Lowe, and Yance Drebin were already visible around the control ring. Sherzai commanded BatRon 809, Murphy’s battleship squadron. That made her his senior parasite commander, and she appeared focused on controls not visible in her holo. All three of them wore their combat utility vac suits, although Drebin’s collar was unsealed and his helmet wasn’t on his thigh like Sherzai’s and Lowe’s. A moment later, images of Captain Marnix Jurgens, Ereshkigal’s captain, and Captain Tahlia Sacks of Gilgamesh, joined them, and Murphy stopped pacing and turned to face the display.
“As Captain Lowe already knows,” he said without preamble, “we’re still picking up nothing from Inverness, not even the nav buoys.”
None of them looked very surprised by the buoys’ silence. Their continuous transmissions should have been picked up the moment Ishtar dropped sublight, but no League commander would have left them intact after hitting the system. The lack of response from an inhabited colony world was more than simply ominous, however.
“What do the visuals show, Harry?” the admiral asked, turning his head to look at O’Hanraghty. “No League invasion fleet, I assume.”
The chief of staff swiped a hand through the holo and refocused it on Inverness.
“No Leaguies, Sir. And not a lot of detail on Inverness from this range, either. But the atmosphere is showing heavy particulate density, which is consistent with K-strikes. Less than I’d expect after a normal League bombardment, though.”
“Fits with the initial account,” Murphy said. “The League delivered a mortal blow to the colony. We’re just trying to stop the bleeding.”
“This could still be a trap,” Sherzai said. “Plenty of spots for the bastards to be hiding in close orbit of the other planets or on the far side of the star.”
“Then a full deployment is warranted?” Murphy sipped coffee thoughtfully. “We wouldn’t want our parasites on the racks if the League is here.”
“Sir,” Lowe pointed out, “if we deploy all the parasites, it’ll take over four hours to recover them, and that will put us that much further behind on our arrival in New Dublin. We’re already cutting that pretty close, and—”
“How many survivors are we going to evacuate?” O’Hanraghty asked the flag captain. “If there are more than a handful, just finding them is going to take a hell of a lot longer than four hours. And how much risk do you want to take if the League is still here?”
“They’re not,” Drebin said from Burgoyne’s command deck. He put his hands on his hips. “This was a raid, like I said. Smash and run. I doubt we’ll find enough left over to fill the cargo hold of a fleet tender. And—”
“Admiral, I think I’ve got something,” Callum interrupted with a raised hand.
“What?” his father—and every other eye—turned to him.
“I’m picking up something on one of the weaker AM bands,” he replied. “Not something Lieutenant Mastroianni would be monitoring—we pulled it in on the tac sensors—but it’s strong enough to break through atmosphere.”
“What is it?” O’Hanraghty asked.
“Dot-dot-dot.” Callum cupped a hand over his earbud and looked at his father. “Dash-dash-dash, then dot-dot—”
“SOS,” Murphy said. “Help.”
Drebin looked away.
“No satellites in orbit,” O’Hanraghty said, continuing to study the visual imagery. “We are picking up a few heat plumes, though. Fires or emergency generators, I’d guess.”
“Who knows what we’ll find down there?” Murphy set his cup onto the control ring. “Captain Lowe, the task force will proceed to Inverness, standard orbital insertion but deploy the recon drones to sweep ahead of us. Commodore Sherzai, we’ll launch parasites once the carriers have decelerated to twenty KPS—I want them covering us when we enter orbit—but be prepared for a crash launch if we detect any League presence on our way in. Captain Sacks, for the moment, I’m designating Gilgamesh as our primary receiving ship. Please alert your sick bay accordingly.”
Murmured acknowledgments came back, and Murphy nodded, then looked at Drebin’s holo window.
“And I’ll need you on the ground to help coordinate the rescue effort, Captain Drebin,” he said.
“But…Admiral,” Drebin looked to the other officers, “I highly doubt any of that will be necessary. There can’t be much to—”
“You were stationed here for years.” Murphy’s tone was pleasant but his eyes were hard. “You’re our subject matter expert. Any issue?”
“No. No, of course not, Sir,” Drebin said. “I’ll see to it that I take a full staff down with me.”
* * *
Images of Inverness continued to come in as the FTLCs neared the planet.
O’Hanraghty had tasked two of Ishtar’s Heimdallar drones for a close recon flyby. Equipped with a lower-powered, more durable version of the Hauptman coil drive which powered the Federation Navy’s missiles, the Heimdallars were capable of eight hundred gravities’ acceleration for up to twelve hours before their onboard power was exhausted. Given that their maximum deceleration rate was lower than Ishtar’s, they’d drawn well ahead of the FTLC and their imagery showed a lot more detail.
Now pictures of the wrecked capital city came up in the holo tank: buildings flattened by blast waves, blocks blackened by fires, frost- and snow-covered cars and roads. Murphy touched one picture and shifted the view to the side. The next one in his queue came up, and a park appeared. The letters “SOS” were written across it in what looked like blackened dashes, and Murphy’s eyes narrowed.
“Ops, how long are the segments in those letters?”
“They vary between about one-point-five and two meters, Admiral,” Commander Mirwani replied quietly. “Average is approximately a hundred and fifty-seven centimeters.”
“Did they use…bodies?” Callum asked.
“It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen that,” O’Hanraghty told him, and the younger man swallowed.
Murphy looked at the holo for another moment, then turned and walked over to Callum’s station. His face was impassive, but his expression couldn’t hide the emotions churning behind it.
Not from his son.
“It…I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Callum said. He couldn’t have said whether he was trying to reassure his father or himself.
“I want you down with the rescue effort,” Murphy said. “You’ll be the Operations liaison. Stay close to Drebin.”
Callum’s eyes widened, and Murphy keyed his personal comm.
“Yes, Sir?” Sergeant Major Logan’s voice said in his earbud.
“I’ll be sending Lieutenant Murphy planetside as operations liaison, Sergeant Major,” Murphy said, never looking away from Callum. “I want your people with him. Full kit.”
“Full kit? Roger, Sir. Though I doubt the young sir will get into any trouble.”
“I hope not. On the other hand, I believe the presence of Hoplons will nip any trouble that does arise in the bud, and you’ll be available to assist the rescue effort.”
“Power supply might be an issue, but it’s not like we’ll be under fire during a hot swap if we have to change cans,” Logan observed.
“We enter orbit in forty-seven minutes,” Murphy told him.
“I’ll be ready, Admiral. Logan clear.”
“I’m going?” Callum’s face went a bit pale. “Down there?”
“You’ll be my eyes,” his father replied.
Callum started to say something, then closed his mouth, and Murphy put a hand on his shoulder.
“You were wrong, Son,” he said very quietly. “It is going to be bad. Worse than anything you ever imagined. But I need you down there.”
“But what if—I mean…” Callum swallowed. “What do I do if…?”
“You drive on,” Murphy said, squeezing his shoulder. “You drive on. Those people down there need us.”
* * *
Callum stepped out of the command tent and shivered as the icy winter air hit him.
He looked up to gray skies. The entire task force hung in orbit overhead, the parasite warships deployed in a protective hemisphere around the mammoth FTLCs, and an intermittent stream of shuttles came and went through the cloud layer above the broken city. Drones swept a methodical search pattern overhead, spreading out, broadcasting a message on repeat that promised medical treatment and evacuation here at what remained of the capital’s largest sports stadium.
The evacuation center had sprouted with near magical speed, he thought, lowering his gaze to the field hospital, triage center, and mess halls on the ruined playing field. The “magic” of six decades of experience dealing with situations just like this one, he thought grimly.
It was just a pity they’d had so few survivors to use all that expertise on yet.
It was fifteen below zero in the open—six degrees on the old Fahrenheit scale—and all of those facilities were in tents, but those tents’ smart fabric was a far, far better insulator than any pre-space material might have been. Their interior temperature was forty degrees warmer than the air outside them, and he adjusted his field jacket’s fur-lined collar in an attempt to block out the cold.
It was useless.
He shivered again, pulled out his personal comm, and punched a combination.
“O’Hanraghty,” a voice said after a moment. “Dare I ask why you’re using your personal comm and not the net?”
“Dad said he wanted me to stay close to Drebin,” Callum replied.
“And?”
“And Drebin has just ‘suggested’ I’d be more useful leading one of the SAR teams. I don’t think he wants me looking over his shoulder. Or it might be Chavez and Steiner.” Callum’s lips twitched. “I think he finds their presence, um…threatening. Although he did point out the suits would be useful clearing wreckage if I took them out on search and rescue.”
“I see,” the chief of staff said. “Hold one.”
The comm went silent for several lengthy seconds, and Callum watched his breath drift away from him in white clouds while he waited.
“Okay,” O’Hanraghty said finally. “Take the team out. Drebin’s right about how useful the suits could be, and we’ll get another set of eyes on him. Someone too senior for him to send off on an errand.”
“Are you sure?” Callum asked. Enough reports had already come in for him to dread what he might encounter out in the ruins.
“Yes,” O’Hanraghty said crisply. Then his voice softened just a bit. “It won’t be fun out there, Callum. I know that. I’ve been there, and I wish I hadn’t. But Drebin’s got the authority to send you, unless your dad overrules him, and that’d be…counterproductive. And you can do some good out there, Callum. You really can.”
“If you say so,” Callum said dubiously. “Clear.”
He tucked the comm back into his pocket and drew a deep, icy breath. Then he went looking for “his” Hoplons.
* * *
Even through the cold, the smell was everywhere.
Callum longed for the forgotten warmth of the HQ tent as the cold ate deeper into his bones despite his cold-weather gear. He and his team had been out in the shattered city for over three hours, and he’d already seen enough ruin—and death—to last him a lifetime. What he hadn’t seen was a single living survivor, although many of the other SAR teams had. He’d come to the conclusion that Drebin had deliberately assigned him a sector where there wouldn’t be any for him to find. It would have been petty, but then, Drebin was a petty man, wasn’t he?
“Nothing in here, Sir,” Corporal Steiner’s voice said in his earbud. “Wasn’t much of a shelter to start with. Looks like it caved when the back wall came down.”
“Check.” Callum made a note on his handheld control slate. “Come on back out. Map shows a sidewalk shelter down the block.”
“On my way.”
At least they were on the last leg and headed back in, Callum thought. Check the sidewalk shelter, then that “visual anomaly” SAR command wanted him to check out, and then maybe he could at least get warm again. Maybe grab a late lunch before Drebin found some other way to get him out from underfoot.
A shadow fell across the packed and dirty snow around him as a war suit stepped through the broken glass of a storefront to join him. The Hoplon stood about 2.3 meters in height, with wide, blocky shoulders and a domed, turretlike helmet that made Steiner look more like a robot than a Marine in powered armor. The suit’s hands ended in oversized fingers, and the whine of servos within the metal housing carried on the wind along with that godawful smell.
Chavez stood just behind Callum in the same armor. One of the Hoplons was always at his back, and at the moment Chavez had what Callum thought of as the babysitter’s job. The private carried a “carbine” Callum was sure he couldn’t have lifted if his life depended on it, but the weapon was mag-locked to his armor’s torso at the moment and he’d extended what looked like a half-meter sword from his suit’s right forearm. It moved, extending and retracting like a cat flexing its claws. Light wavered oddly around it and Callum heard a faint crackle each time the wind caressed it.
“Cut your blade.” Steiner’s voice came through the speaker at the base of his helmet. “You’re just bleeding charge.”
“I don’t like dead places,” Chavez said. “Just don’t.”
“Wasn’t that you with me at the Siege of Gettys? That place was dead as hell.” Steiner reached down and thrust angled fingertips beneath the snow to pry up a metal hatch. He flipped it open and looked down a dark stairwell.
“That place was dying.” Chavez rotated his force blade, energy snapping as snowflakes hit it. “Big difference.”
“One second,” Callum said. He pointed a data rod at the stairwell, then shook his head. “Two pings off personal transponders. Both…inactive.”
“At least we got here before the implants faded,” Steiner said. “You imagine having to clear these places manually? To hell with that. Just write off anyone that doesn’t make it to the evac shuttles and have bots bulldoze the place. Recolonize a few years later, after the dust settles.”
“That’s barbaric,” Callum said.
“It’s been done before,” Chavez said. “I heard the colony ticket costs less after every cycle. Bet you could get a homestead on Rabita for like…a month’s salary. Before tax.”
“Who’s got Rabita right now? It changes hands so often I can’t keep track,” Steiner said.
“My point exactly.” Chavez’s helmet rotated from side to side. “Big boss is en route.”
“What?” Callum looked up as shuttle lights descended in the distance. “The Admiral’s on the way?”
“On the shuttle.” Chavez gestured at an incoming shuttle with the force blade. “That’s Sergeant Major Logan, Sir. His beacon popped on our tracker. Wouldn’t be here if your father wasn’t.”
“We’re almost done with this sector.” Callum stamped his boots into the road to get his blood going. “Drones are almost done with their sweeps. We check that ‘anomaly’ and we can head in.”
“Suits me, Sir. Could use a battery change, anyway.”
“This way, then.” Callum pointed down a side street, where a path the width of a ground car was open but covered in a few inches of fresh snow. “Come on.”
“Stay behind,” Chavez said. He moved ahead of Callum, force blade deactivated and carbine at the ready.
“You guys are paranoid,” Callum said, but he followed along obediently behind the towering war suit.
They’d covered another half block or so when his control slate tingled with the vibration that indicated fresh data had arrived. He looked down, then frowned.
“That’s got to be an error,” he muttered.
“What kind of error?” Steiner asked, and Callum reminded himself that Hoplons had excellent audio systems.
“Probably nothing,” he said. “One of our peripheral drones is getting a garbled return a couple of blocks beyond our sector. Coming from what the map says was a schoolhouse.” He shrugged. “If I get close enough, the signal will clear up.”
Steiner grunted in acknowledgment and Callum concentrated on his footing as they slogged through the snow. The icy wind grew stronger as they neared the end of the current block, and Callum winced as an even worse smell of decay hit him.
“Ugh. What is that? Busted sewer line?”
“What’s what?” Steiner asked from behind him.
“Yeah, you guys can’t smell in there, can you? At least you’re warm,” Callum said.
“These things can get pretty funky after a couple of days buttoned up,” Steiner replied. “’Course, by then you’re so full of amps and stingers that the smell really ain’t a problem.”
“You ever see the elves?” Chavez cut a tight corner and signaled Callum forward. “The mechanical elves? I saw them on Gettys.”
“Everyone sees the elves,” Steiner said.
“You guys hallucinate in those suits? Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”
“We don’t shoot the elves,” Chavez said. “It’s bad luck. And they don’t look anything like Leaguie ground pounders, either.”
“Plus the squad leader will hit anyone that sees them with a sedative,” Steiner put in. “Which gives you the worst damned jitters a few hours later.”
“Civilian sector doesn’t let workers operate heavy machinery when they’re amped up, or on downers,” Callum said, then stopped walking as he heard Steiner’s laugh over the speaker.
“Something funny?” he asked.
“Nothing, Sir. Longshoremen and ship’s crew are always stone cold sober, I’m sure,” the Hoplon said.
“Well—” Callum began.
“Fuck me running,” Chavez interrupted. He’d stopped, his armor facing around a corner, and the force blade had extended from his wrist again.
“What?” Callum stepped closer to a wall, his boots sinking into deeper snow. “What is it?”
“Guess…guess you’d better come see.”
Chavez’s force blade fizzled out and the stink of ozone washed over Callum as he stumbled awkwardly out of the snowbank and rounded the corner.
His data slate slipped from his hands and bounced off his boot.
They’d found the “anomaly.”
The mound of corpses was taller than the Hoplon. Snowfall had partially buried it, but not enough to hide the horror. Most of the dead were in black body bags. Others were wrapped in plastic and tape, and still more wore the clothes they’d died in, lying in a fan around the larger pile.
Column’s eyes darted from one nightmare to the next. Men, women…children. Deep red birds, the size of crows, picking at exposed flesh. Eyes frozen open. Blue lips, sprinkled with fresh snowflakes.
“Can’t bury ’em when the ground’s frozen.” Steiner’s voice seemed obscenely calm. “First batch were taken care of right. Newer dumps were just thrown at the pile. Pretty standard pattern when things go bad. Hope’s the last thing to run out.”
“Fuckin’ Leaguies.” Chavez’s arms fell to his sides. “Would’ve been kinder to just glass the planet. My biohazard’s picking up a cholera variant, on top of everything else.”
“Navy fuckers should’ve stayed in-system.” Steiner’s voice was still calm; his expression was not. “Could’ve sent Ophion for help. They could’ve done everything we’re doing. Hell, they could’ve dropped a power plant, got the utilities back up.”
“Navy always runs when it gets tough,” Chavez said. “Smaj got abandoned back when he was green. Said his ride got scared off after a drop, then him and his platoon lasted six months in some jungle before a Survey ship swung through.”
“He told me it was four—Hey. The zero okay?” Steiner nudged Callum on the shoulder with a war suit knuckle that sent him half a step forward.
“They…they—” Callum waved at the bodies. “They’re all—”
“Uh-oh. Pull your collar down, Sir,” Steiner said.
“I…I…urrrk.” Callum pitched forward and vomited. He braced on his hands and knees, then heaved a plentiful breakfast onto the road.
“Love to help you, Sir,” Steiner said. “But mission parameters mean I have to stay buttoned up. So sorry.”
“This your first time seeing something like this?” Chavez asked.
Callum threw up again, his shoulders trembling.
“That’s what I thought. Just be glad this isn’t a vacuum reclamation. I had to do one of those. Some cruiser got scratched out past the snow line like two decades ago. Had to do wrecker for engineers to get to the power plant. Whole crew was flash frozen. All looking the same as the moment they died all those years ago.”
“You don’t think he’s got enough nightmare fuel?” Steiner asked. “Sir? Sir, how about you do a close sweep with your drones so we can catalog the transponders and get the hell out of here. Beacons are good through twenty feet of packed earth.”
Callum reached for his slate and swiped two fingertips across the screen. The air filled with the buzz of drones as they crisscrossed over the mound, and Callum wiped his sleeve across his mouth.
“We should…um.” He choked back bile.
“Head back, yeah,” Chavez said. “Don’t feel bad, Sir. Us Hoplons have to make it through an infantry tour before we can apply to be metalheads. They don’t want us losing our lunch inside the suits.”
“That’s not why—”
“Shut up, Steiner. I’m trying to make the kid feel better,” Chavez said. “What? My speaker’s on? Shit.”
“I’ve got them all.” Callum thrust his slate into a pocket. “The sector’s clear. Let’s get the hell back.” He looked at the bodies again, then shook his head. “Soon as we have eighty percent of the population accounted for, we can leave the system. That’s federal law.”
He turned on his heel and marched back the way he’d come, not waiting for his escort.
* * *
Terrence Murphy stood to one side of the shuttle ramp as Inverness’s survivors shuffled past him. They were dirty, haggard. Most didn’t seem to care that he was there. They only clutched foil ration packets and shambled into the warmth of the cargo bay, where long rows of seats had been installed to get personnel off the planet as quickly as possible.
Not all of them, though.
An old woman spat at Murphy’s boots and flashed him a hand gesture with three fingers.
“The evil eye,” Drebin said from just behind him. The captain wore a full-face weather mask and had no ship insignia on his uniform. “Local superstitions. Bunch of ingrate Fringers.”
“At least she’s alive to be rude,” Murphy said. Logan’s and Faeran’s armored presence had kept the colonists from threatening the admiral or other staff outright at the evacuation point. Some of the rescue efforts in outlying settlements had been met with anger, even some violence, but no serious injuries to Murphy’s people.
The admiral glanced at Drebin.
“What’s their burial custom?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter, Sir. This planet’s Category Epsilon. No viable way to sustain Federation presence. Regs are to incinerate anything and everything—leave nothing for the League if they try to seize the system after we pull out.”
“So the enemy expects us to finish the job,” Murphy said. “Such a waste.”
“This is the Fringe.” Drebin shrugged. “Inverness has been in range of a League raid for years. They could’ve relocated farther from the frontier with a federal tax credit.” He shrugged again. “They knew the risks.”
“And they also had you and your squadron in-system.” Murphy walked away from the shuttle as the last colonist stepped onto the ramp. “There was a promise.”
He walked through pallets of emergency supplies and battery packs with Drebin and his Hoplons at his heels. He paused for a quick conversation with a surgeon outside a field hospital, then waved to Callum as his son came through the outer perimeter of the evacuation center.
“Admiral.” Callum tapped his slate against Murphy’s to transfer its data. “Bravo-Twelve’s clear. I…resolved that anomaly the drones picked up.”
Murphy’s eyes lingered on some lime green stains on Callum’s jacket, then gave him a curt nod.
“Looks like we’ve got ninety percent of the colonists accounted for,” the admiral said. “The League commander didn’t make much of an effort to target the population centers, just the utility networks. Hitting those was a fatal wound to life support.” He swiped his screen to a map of the city.
“It’s still a crime against humanity, what’s happened here,” Callum said. “Who was the commander? The League might listen to reason and hand him over, like they did with the Butcher of Baiknor.”
Drebin laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Callum asked, his face dark.
“Baiknor was during the first five years of the war,” Drebin said. “Scratching civilians with K-strikes wasn’t new even then, and it stayed the same after Baiknor. The reason the Leaguies gave the Butcher up was because he scratched a League planet that was in open revolt, and they didn’t want to deal with his trial. And the League commander here was a she, some new hothead named Xing.”
“Xing?” Murphy repeated sharply. “How do you know her name?”
“She…sent a transmission to Inverness. Before she K-struck it,” Drebin said uncomfortably.
“And you didn’t mention that in your report? Or in any of our earlier conversations?”
“It…didn’t seem important,” Drebin said.
“Not important. I see.” Murphy looked at him very levelly for a moment, then glanced down at his slate.
“Callum, did you sweep the schoolhouse bunker on Noborn Street?” he asked.
“Bunker?” Callum leaned over to glance at his father’s slate and grimaced. Murphy was looking at the map data Callum had just transferred to him, and the garbled drone signal blinked on it. “That’s outside my sector.”
“It was only a couple of blocks outside your sector. You didn’t send your drones in for a closer look?”
“I didn’t…No, was I supposed to?”
“The other lieutenant assigned to it didn’t get very close, either…” Murphy stood looking at the slate, then shoved it into his pocket. “Let’s go for a walk, yes?”
The admiral adjusted his kit and took off at a brisk pace. Drebin didn’t move for a moment. Then he started back toward the landing pads.
Murphy stopped and looked back.
“Do come along…Governor,” he said. He motioned to one side and Logan’s helmet spun to Drebin. The captain looked back and forth between the admiral and the Hoplon, then turned and began slogging sullenly through the snow behind Murphy.
Callum caught up to his father.
They walked in silence through the stench and the ruin, and Callum thought about the look in his father’s eyes when he’d asked about the garbled return. It wasn’t fair, he thought. The schoolhouse was outside his sector, not his responsibility. And he’d meant to check it, anyway, if he hadn’t been…distracted by that horrible pile of death. But that look in his dad’s eyes…
“This is…Is it always like this out in the Fringe?” he asked at last.
“It’s not how the feeds show it, but are you actually surprised by that? Fifty-six years of war and the Heart Worlds know the statistics, but that’s all they are—statistics. They know the economic cost from the chunk wartime taxes take from their wealth, and maybe they know a few who have served. The Fringe gets hit like this every so often, but it barely makes the feeds anymore, especially when the cost in lives is only a few hundreds of thousands. This wasn’t a forward deployment world, and the total population was under a million. Nobody back home knows about it, and frankly, son, nobody really cares. It’s not their war anymore.”
“But we had the mustering station at Olympia.”
“Veteran hiring quotas.” Murphy shook his head. “And who did you see in it? Anybody you knew? Did you know there are some Heart Worlds with no mustering stations at all? A few of the Five Hundred don’t care for their workforce to be subject to the draft or recall. Cuts into ‘vital’ economic output, you know.”
“What? I thought compulsory service was…not optional if your number comes up,” Callum said.
“It’s not hard to get a deferment, and when the Five Hundred wall off a significant portion of their economic empires for the sake of the wartime economy, or when others of the Five Hundred get their sons and daughters into safe billets close to home, like the Army, what do you think happens? The obligation for military service falls on those that aren’t as critical to the economy, that’s what. It falls on the Fringe. Those outside the Heart Worlds. Did you know the casualty rates are fifteen times higher per capita for those outside the Heart? Not even factoring in strikes like this.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“The Fringe knows it. The feeds have a way of keeping such news out of the public’s eye back home. Not so much out here, son.” He stopped, looked around, and pointed. “There. That pile of rubble looks like the schoolhouse. Your drones, Callum?”
Callum stepped to one side and tapped his screen to send a small swarm of drones over what remained of the three-story building.
“Admiral,” Drebin looked furtively from building to building, “I trust your report back to the Oval will be transparent.”
“Oh, I’ll put in every detail,” Murphy said. “No doubts as to the sequence of events from the League’s initial attack to the moment you exercised your commander’s discretion to preserve combat power in the face of an overwhelming enemy force.”
“We would have lost my entire squadron. Then none of the colonists would have survived if I hadn’t made it back to Jalal.”
“I am curious about one point.” Murphy clasped his hands behind his back and turned to face Drebin. “As I looked through some of the records recovered from an emergency data core, why did the civil alert alarms go off so close to the time of the first K-strike?”
“That—” Drebin’s shoulders hunched slightly. “You’d have to take that up with the ground emergency coordinator. He was in a bunker that’s a smoking hole a couple of kilometers from here.”
“Hmmm…And the core aboard your ship has a number of gaps around the same time,” Murphy said thoughtfully.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m simply gathering information to assure a complete and thorough report to the Oval.”
“I’ve told you everything.” Drebin straightened. “Don’t bother with what the Fringers have to tell you. They’re likely still in shock from the tragedy.”
“Got something.” Callum raised his slate and the drones formed an orbit overhead. “Looks like it’s just a ghost image or two.”
“Are we done out here?” Drebin asked.
“What’s the sensor rating on that bunker?” Murphy asked him. “Because if it was built to spec, it’s meant to block League detection.”
“To spec? In the Fringe?” Drebin sniffed.
“Logan.”
Murphy pointed at the collapsed building, and the four Hoplons waded into the debris. Steiner thrust his hands beneath a segment of broken wall and flipped it up and over across the street, bouncing a shower of loose masonry off Faeran’s back. She didn’t seem to notice as she kicked a steel beam to one side.
“Not the most subtle approach,” Callum observed.
“The bunker held,” Murphy said, studying the data from the drone’s ground penetrating sensors. “Drebin, signal all ground teams to do a close sweep of every such facility in the city.”
“Sir, the sweep is over,” Drebin said.
Murphy looked at him. For a moment, Drebin tried to meet those gray eyes, then he turned away to speak into a microphone on his wrist.
“Hatch,” Chavez announced, raising one arm. Logan waded over to him and tugged at the metal handle, but it didn’t lift.
“Bolt locked,” the sergeant major said to Murphy, and a cutting torch popped out of his forearm.
“No,” Murphy called out. “If there’s anyone alive inside, you could injure them.”
“Fair enough.” Logan extinguished the torch. He gripped the hatch in both massive hands, instead, and servos whined as his armor pulled against the handle. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the hatch came off with an explosive, metallic crack.
Callum put the back of his sleeve against his nose.
“I don’t smell anything,” Murphy said.
Callum’s cheeks bulged and he swallowed whatever had come up.
“I’ll handle this one.” Murphy gave his son a pat on the shoulder and went into the rubble. He leaned over the open hatch.
“Federation forces,” he called.
There was no answer, and he removed a flashlight from his belt and started down the ladder.
“Sir, let me unbutton and go with you,” Logan said as the admiral descended into the darkness.
“How about some light, instead?” Murphy replied.
Logan bent forward at the waist, across the ladder, and an armored disk popped off his breastplate to expose a floodlight that came to brilliant life.
The white light was a pool around Murphy’s feet, shining off the ladder rungs as he got to the bottom. The bunker was in total darkness, but for the halo around the ladder. He sniffed hard, smelling body odor and a thin scent of rot.
He raised his flashlight and stepped away from the ladder. His light passed over a jumble of ransacked boxes, then to a cot. A thin man lay there, his torso wrapped in bloody bandages. Both arms hung off the side of the cot, and his face was covered. Next to the cot was a pile of blankets and empty food cartons.
“Federation forces,” Murphy repeated. He moved closer, his light lingering on the pile. Then he knelt next to it and tugged at a blanket. A patch of blond hair appeared, and he pulled away another blanket. A pale face looked up at him. The girl’s lips were badly chapped, her pale blue eyes hollow-looking, her cheeks sunken.
She stared at him, lips quivering.
Murphy moved his light to one side.
“Can you hear me? My name is Terrence. Terrence Murphy.” He flipped the base of his flashlight to the ground and pressed down. The handle rose, transforming into a lantern, and he took a canteen from his belt and pressed it to her lips. Clear water flowed around her mouth, and she coughed.
“There we go.” He let go when skeletal hands emerged from the blankets to grip the canteen. “Drink all you can. This is all over, okay? I’ll get you out of here. Both of you.”
He reached for the blanket covering the man’s face, but those skeletal fingers closed on his wrist with iron strength.
“My brother’s eyes are gone,” she said. “I don’t…I don’t know when it happened. Are you taking us to heaven?”
“I’m no angel,” Murphy said. “No demon, either. Just a man. I know you’ve been down here for a while, but there’s still a world up there. It’s a bad one. One you can’t stay on, but I can take you someplace better. How’s that sound?”
She began to cry, and he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in gently for a hug.
“I got here as fast as I could,” he said softly. “I’m sorry it wasn’t fast enough.”
“I prayed for him,” she said. “For so long—”
“Dad?” Callum called from the ladder where he’d followed his father down. “What have you—She’s alive? Hey, Logan! Call in an ambulance!”
“Let’s get you out of here,” Murphy said. He scooped her up in his arms and gave Callum a stern look as she covered her face with her arms and clutched at his jacket.
“This is why we’re thorough,” Murphy said. “You understand, son?”
“It wasn’t my—”
Callum stopped when Murphy shook his head.
“I’ll escort her to medical,” Callum said, holding out his own arms. “Make sure she gets straight to the docs. The other one…”
Murphy looked at him a moment, then passed the slight, trembling body to him. He pointed his son at the ladder and went to the man’s body. He lifted the stiff arms back onto the cot. The corner of a piece of cardboard fell out from beneath the blanket and onto the floor, and he picked it up. He held it to the light, reading the poorly written, badly spelled words, then went to his knees beside the cot and recited the old prayer from memory.
“May brooks and trees and singing hills, join in the chorus, too, and every gentle wind that blows, send happiness to you.”
* * *
“More?”
The young lieutenant held a spoonful of ice chips to Eira’s lips.
She lay on a gurney inside a white hospital tent. She and the lieutenant were the only ones inside a facility with room for nearly a dozen more. With blankets up to her armpits and in a simple smock, her pale skin and blond hair almost blended into the sterile environment.
She studied an IV line stuck into the back of one hand, then brushed hair down to cover the mark above her eye.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you’re dehydrated,” he said. “This is packed with salt and glycogen, great after a night out on the town.” He pressed the spoon to her lips as if she were a recalcitrant child.
“Why do you even—no.” She spat out the ice and pushed his hand away. “Why are you bothering with me? You have the Admiral’s look. You have his name.” She glanced down at his name tape. “You’re a Heart.”
“Well,” he rested his hands on his lap. “I—What’s your name?” he asked. “You already know mine, the last one at least.”
“Eira,” she said. “My name’s Eira.”
“Well, Eira,” he said, “I should have found you sooner. My dad—I mean the Admiral—he’s an engineer by training. That’s how we realized that bunker was intact. Me, I’m a Fasset drive engineer. Okay with vac equipment and such, not so much with dirt side and atmosphere. But I’m good enough with drones. Except that I sort of…walked past you. Twice.”
“What will you do with me now?” She held out a trembling hand and he passed her the bowl of ice chips and spoon.
“I don’t think anyone can live on Inverness for a while.” He shrugged. “My guess is that we’ll evac you all to Jalal, or take you on to New Dublin. You ever been there?”
Eira shook her head and took a little bite of ice.
“Any family elsewhere in the Federation?”
Eira paused, then shook her head again, quickly.
“Well, the Colonial Board has a lot of practice at this,” he said. “You’ll be up and around in no time.”
“The Federation left us without firing a shot,” she said. “I had…some time to think. The civil alarms went off so close to the first strike. We should have had at least an hour’s warning. That was the drill. And we didn’t get any. How could the League get so close without anyone knowing?”
“That’s a very good question, Eira,” he said. “One more people should be asking.”
His gaze lingered on the scar tissue on the right side of her face, and she turned her good side to him.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “That looks treatable, why—”
“Come closer.” Eira motioned and he leaned over. She pressed fingertips around his face gently. “You’re so perfect. I heard the Five Hundred can spend money and wipe away any marks, but in the Fringe, we’re worth only what we can give.”
“No work done. Mom didn’t approve.” He took her by the wrist and gave her hand a squeeze. “Although, come to think of it, everyone I ever went to school with did have great skin and amazing hair. Huh. Never thought about it.”
* * *
Callum sat there, holding the waif’s hand, looking into that thin, three-quarters-starved face. He couldn’t imagine what she’d endured, and he knew it. But he was pretty damn sure he couldn’t have survived it as well as this skinny, forty-kilo ragamuffin. In fact—
“Just get me out of this shit hole.” The voice from outside the tent interrupted his thoughts as the silhouette of two men showed dimly through the walls. Callum recognized Drebin’s high-pitched voice. “Murphy expects me to be the last shuttle up. Does he think the frigging lights need to be turned off? Just get my ship. Now.”
The girl’s head snapped up, her eyes suddenly wide. Then the bowl crashed to the floor as she flung her blankets aside. She exploded from the gurney and bolted out the door flaps, pulling her IV stand down with a clatter before the needle ripped out of her hand.
Callum sat dumbstruck. Then a crash and screams from outside snapped him into action. He slapped the door aside and found the girl straddled on top of Drebin in a patch of muddy slush. Another man lay in a heap of tumbled boxes, struggling to get up.
The girl screamed as she beat at Drebin in a wild fury. The governor had one arm up, trying to block, but Callum heard the meaty smack of knuckles against his face again and again. She landed a hammer blow to his mouth and a bloody tooth went flying.
Callum froze, uncertain. He’d never witnessed anything so savage in his entire life.
“Eira? Stop. Stop!” He bent to grab her from behind and caught an elbow to the bridge of his nose. There was a sharp crack, light exploded across his vision, and he fell back on his haunches, blood choking his sinuses and pouring down the back of his throat.
Eira’s banshee wail cut off as her head lunged forward. Her teeth snapped shut on Drebin’s ear, and he screamed as she jerked back again. His ear came with her, and he panicked and grabbed her by the front of her hospital smock. He jerked her to one side and she landed on a tie-down rope for the hospital tent.
Callum touched his face, and his fingers came back covered in blood.
Eira spat out the severed ear contemptuously and gripped the stake at the end of the line. She yanked it out of the ground, flung the rope aside, and gripped the metal spike like a knife.
Drebin rolled onto his stomach and tried to crawl away.
“No, don’t!” Callum lunged forward and caught Eira by the ankle before she could finish Drebin off.
She looked back at him, her face a mask of rage and her eyes on fire. She kicked him away and snapped back toward Drebin, and Callum saw Logan—in fatigues—running down the duckboard walkway, pistol in hand. The pistol barked, and Eira jerked as something hit her in the sternum. She looked down at the purple lump of goo. Then her eyes rolled up and she tipped over to one side into a mound of dirty snow.
Drebin kept screaming as he ran.
Logan was there a moment later, weapon still trained on Eira.
“You hurt?” he asked Callum.
“Ah. Owndly by doze.” Callum pressed between his eyes and down the bridge of his nose, wincing in pain.
“That’s not hurt.” Logan kicked the fallen stake back under the tent. “This is the Chief,” he said into his duty comm. “Got one in custody. Secondary has minor injuries. Alert primary that the natives are getting restless and he needs to prioritize evac.”
“What did you do to her?” Callum pulled Eira out of the snow and brushed icy chunks off of her.
“Nonlethal munition. Low powered, subsonic.” Logan shrugged. “Massive sedative. Comes with one hell of a hangover. What happened?”
“She just…heard Drebin and went berserk.” Callum held a handful of snow against his bleeding nose. “Ugh. When does this stop?”
“That was Drebin? Didn’t recognize him with all the bruises.” Logan looked over one shoulder, then waved at Faeran as she and the rest of the Hoplons appeared. “Too bad he tripped.”
“Tripped?” Callum repeated.
“Yeah. You didn’t see him trip?”
“What? I was inside and then—”
“Didn’t see him trip.” Logan sniffed hard, then bent over, picked up Drebin’s ear, and shoved it in a cargo pocket. “Got to be careful out here, young Sir. Fringe is dangerous.”
He slapped a plastic band around Eira’s wrists and it bent into cuffs. He tossed her over his shoulder and walked away.