Marko Kloos - Lines of Departure

“We’ll get that to you,” I say. “It’ll be a short list. Right now we have two ships on our side, and one of them is a ratty old freighter.”

Dr. Stewart lets out a little sigh.

“Not much we can do, and nothing to do it with,” she echoes Sergeant Fallon. “Well, let me see if we can add something of value, Sergeant.”

“Seven days,” Sergeant Fallon muses as we walk back to the ops center. “If we don’t come up with a way to knock your aliens out of space in seven days, we’re fucked.”

“Could be that Russian cruiser isn’t running from a Lanky ship,” I say, even though I can’t even convince myself of the possibility.

“Could be that I’m not really on some forsaken ball of ice at the ass end of the settled galaxy,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Could be that this is all a bad dream caused by too much shitty soy beer at the NCO club. What do you think?”

“I think if they don’t come up with something really fucking clever in Science Country, we’re fucked,” I concur.

“Never thought I’d kick it out in space. Always figured I’d get my lights turned off in a PRC somewhere. Look around the wrong corner, bam . Not this alien invasion business.”

I have a brief flashback to a hot night five years ago, memories of a rifle in my right hand and an injured Sergeant Fallon hanging off my left side. I still recall the feeling of absolute certainty that we were both just moments away from death as the fléchettes from rioters’ guns whizzed past us with supersonic cracks. I can still feel the blood running down my side, and the way every breath hurt as if someone was driving a knife between my ribs. But the worst of it was the feeling of total abandonment, of being left to die in the middle of a filthy, squalid welfare city, surrounded by people who hated us so much for who we were and what we did that they would have torn us limb from limb with their bare hands.

“If our time is up, at least we’ll be dying in fresh air,” I say. “With rifles in our hands and a hearty ‘fuck you’ on our lips.”

“There are worse ways to go,” Sergeant Fallon agrees. “’Course, I want to explore every other option before we get to the ‘dying in fresh air’ part.”

In the windowless admin building, with the wind blowing the snow around outside in fifty-knot gales, it’s easy for us troopers to fall back into a watch-cycle routine. I spend my watches in the ops center in front of an admin deck, looking at the data from the orbital sensors and the packages the Neural Networks guy on the Indy sends down over encrypted half-millisecond bursts. The Indianapolis has the latest in computers and the very latest in stealth technology, which is the only thing that gives me even a glimmer of hope now. The battered SRA cruiser—if they are indeed damaged and not just pulling a ruse to get into missile range—is creeping closer to New Svalbard with every hour, but even the advanced ELINT gear on the Indy can’t yet see what they’re creeping away from. The fleet units are holding the truce, but their frigate is definitely running an independent search pattern, trying to sniff out the Indy . The Midway and her light cruiser escort are doing slow, predictable laps in orbit, active sensors sweeping the area in equally predictable patterns. In sheer combat power, the light cruiser alone outmatches Indy , but watching those two relics trying to nail down the location of that brand-new stealth ship is almost embarrassing.

At some point, I look up from the screen to see that I’m the only person left in the ops center. I check my computer’s clock and find that it’s 0230 local time, the middle of the night. I lean back and stretch with a yawn.

Behind me, the door to the ops center opens, and Dr. Stewart steps through it. She looks about as fresh as I feel, and there’s a big, old-fashioned porcelain mug in one of her hands. She has a data pad under the other arm.

“Good evening,” she says when she sees me sitting in the corner. “Or good morning, I guess.”

“Everyone’s gone,” I say. “The ops guys turned in a while ago.”

“Actually, I’m here to see you. Where’s the other sergeant?”

“Master Sergeant Fallon? In her quarters, I guess. That mutiny business will wear you out,” I add, and Dr. Stewart smiles wryly.

“For what it’s worth, the civilian crew really appreciates that you decided to stand with us.”

“It wasn’t right for them to try and grab what they did,” I say. “We’re supposed to be a defense force, not an occupying army.”

“I had my prejudices,” she says. “But you’ve managed to put a dent into them. I’m not used to the idea of soldiers being reflective about the ethics of their jobs. I thought you do what they tell you to do.”

“Generally. Not always. They don’t surgically remove your sense of right and wrong when you show up for boot camp, you know.”

“May I sit down?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say. “Your place.”

She pulls up one of the empty chairs from the console bank next to me and rolls it to where I’m sitting. I make her some room and move my rifle, which was leaning against the desk. She sits down with a sigh and puts coffee mug and data pad on the desk next to my loaner admin deck.

“Why aren’t you in your bunk as well? You took part in that mutiny business, too, as far as I recall.”

“I’ll go when Sergeant Fallon is up,” I say. “Somebody’s gotta be down here keeping an eye on things, in case the Indianapolis up in orbit has news to share. They’re sort of our eyes and ears right now.” I point at the admin deck. “That thing is linked with my armor’s computer so I can stay tapped into the telemetry.”

“Is that your job? Communications? I thought you were, you know, a rifleman or something.” She nods at the M-66 carbine leaning against the desk.

“That’s for personal protection. That ”—I point at the screen of the admin deck again—“is for calling in the real guns. I’m the guy on the ground who calls in airstrikes, coordinates attack runs, that sort of thing. I can do a lot more damage with the data deck there than with that rifle.”

“I see.” Dr. Stewart takes a sip from her mug and makes a face. “Lukewarm now,” she says. “And too strong. It’s been sitting out too long.”

“So why aren’t you sleeping at this hour?”

She puts down the mug and picks up her data pad.

“Your little science homework,” she says. “I’ve been trying to think up a way to turn this dinky little water stop into a threat to Lanky ships, but so far I’m not coming up with anything. I guess I’m not used to thinking like a soldier.”

“We could fight them on the ground if all those troops dirtside were in bug suits and had bug weapons,” I say. “We have a lot of boots on the moon right now. The trouble is that they all have guns for shooting people, not Lankies.”

“So we can’t really take them on once they land,” Dr. Stewart says. “What about before they get into orbit? I mean, you’ve said that nobody’s ever destroyed one of their seed ships, but have they ever made one turn back, run away?”

I shake my head. “They’re hard to kill on the ground, but impossible to kill in their ships. Those things are immune to anything we can throw at them.”

“They’re using organic weapons, right?”

“Yeah, some sort of penetrator. Get close enough to a Lanky ship, they launch a few thousand of ’em. Goes right through the laminate armor on our ships.”

“Have we tried doing the same?”

“Our main ship-to-ship stuff is missiles. Nuke-tipped for the Lankies. I don’t think they’ve ever made any difference in combat.”