James Corey: The Butcher of Anderson Station

His soldiers showed up as six hundred green dots, hovering just outside the station.

“Breach, now! Now! Now!” the Dagmar’s pilot yelled into the comms. The ship shuddered as the airlock claws sank into the metal of the station itself, a metallic shriek that Fred felt right through his padded chair. Gravity returned in a sideways lurch as the station began carrying the breaching ships along on its 0.3 g rotation. A series of high-pitched bangs sounded as the breaching charges went off.

Above his tactical display, ten smaller screens flickered on, his squad leaders activating their suits’ helmet cameras. The marines poured through the three new holes in Anderson’s skin. Fred flipped to the tactical floor plan, his fingers tapping against it.

“All squads establish beachhead and fallback position in Corridor L, from Junction 34 to Junction 38,” Fred said into the comm, surprised as always by how calm his voice sounded during a battle.

Green dots moved through the corridors marked on his display. Sometimes new red dots appeared when a marine’s HUD detected return fire and marked the individual as a threat. The red dots never lasted long. Every now and then a green dot shifted to yellow. A soldier down, their armored suits detecting the injuries or death that rendered them combat ineffective.

Combat ineffective. Such a nice euphemism for one of his kids bleeding out on a piece-of-shit station at the ass end of the Belt. Sixty percent expected casualties. Four green dots for every six yellow, and each one of them his.

He watched the assault play out like a high-tech game, moving his pieces, reacting to threats with new orders, keeping score by tracking how many green dots stayed green.

Three red dots appeared. Four green dots stopped advancing and took cover. Fred sent four more green dots into a side passage, moving them into a flanking position. The red dots disappeared. The green dots moved again. It was tempting to get lost in the flow of it, to forget what all the glowing symbols on the screen actually meant.

The squad leader for his point team broke his reverie by calling him on the command channel.

“Overwatch, this is squad one actual.”

Fred shifted his attention to the helmetcam view from squad one’s leader. A makeshift barricade squatted at the other end of a long, gently sloping corridor. His tactical display marked a dozen or more hostiles defending it. As Fred watched, a small object hurtled over the barricade and detonated like a grenade just a few yards from his squad leader’s position.

“Overwatch here, I read you, squad one actual,” Fred replied.

“Heavily fortified position blocking access to the main corridor. Could clear it with heavy weapons, but there would be significant structural damage, and possible loss of life support in this section.”

Fred glanced at the tactical map, noting the proximity of several key life support and power nodes to the barricade’s position. That’s why they set up there. Because they think we won’t.

“Roger that, squad one,” Fred replied, looking for an alternate route. There didn’t seem to be one. The Belters were smart.

“Overwatch, interrogative. Use heavy weapons to clear the barricade, or clear by advancing?”

Blow up a big chunk of the station’s life support, killing who knows how many civilians hiding in their rooms, or send his men in and let them soak up their 60 percent casualties to take the position.

Fuck that. The Belters had made their decision. Let them live with the consequences.

“Squad one actual, you are authorized for heavy weapons use to clear this obstruction. Overwatch out.”

A few seconds later, the barricade vanished in a flash of light and a cloud of smoke. Seconds after that, his people were on the move again.

Three hours and twenty-three yellow dots later, the call came. “Overwatch, this is squad one actual. The command center is taken. The station is ours. Repeat, the station is ours.”

* * *

His arms, tied behind him, ached. Bound at the ankles, he could either lay on his side or lever himself up to his knees. He couldn’t straighten his legs to stand. He chose kneeling.

The darkness of the sack over his head was absolute, but judging from the spin gravity, he was somewhere near the station’s outer skin. An airlock, then. He’d hear the hiss and pop as the inner door sealed. Then either the slow exhalation of evacuated air or, if they were looking to blow him out into space, the cough of the security override. He ran his feet across the floor, trying to find the seams. Would it slide open, or was it one of the old hinged designs?

The sound that came wasn’t mechanical. Somewhere to his left, a woman cleared her throat. A few seconds later, a door opened, then closed. It had the soft sound of a pressure seal, but that didn’t mean much on station. Most doors were airtight. Footsteps approached him. Five people. Maybe six. The woman with the tickle in her throat wasn’t one of them.

“Colonel? I’m going to take that sack off now.”

Fred nodded.

Light returned to the world.

The room was cheap flooring and raw stone. Conduits and ducts ran across the ceiling and walls, and a squat metal desk sat unused in one corner. A service tunnel. The lights were harsh. He recognized the four men from the bar. Another man had joined them. Thin, young, with a case of acne that deserved medical attention. Fred craned his neck to see the woman. She stood at attention, a fifty-year-old fléchette rifle in her hands, and the split-circle armband of the OPA on her bicep.

None of them were wearing masks. When the new man spoke, his voice wasn’t modified. They didn’t care whether Fred could identify them.

“Colonel Frederick Lucius Johnson. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. My name is Anderson Dawes. I work for the OPA.”

“Anderson, eh?” Fred said, and the man shrugged.

“My parents named me after the Anderson-Hyosung Cooperative Industries Group. I think I got off pretty light, all things considered.”

“So what? Anderson Station was like a brother to you?”

“Namesake. Call me Dawes, if it’s more comfortable.”

“Fuck yourself, Dawes.”

Dawes nodded, knelt down facing Fred.

“ Chi-chey au ?” one of the men from the bar asked.

“ Etchyeh ,” Dawes said, and the men walked away. Dawes waited until the door closed behind them before he went on. “You’ve been spending a lot of time in Belter bars, Colonel. Someone might think you were looking for something.”

“Dawes?”

“Fred?”

“I’ve been through better interrogation training than you’ll ever see. You want to build rapport? Go for it. Talk for a while, take my shackles off, start telling me that you can save me if I just tell you what I know. And then I’ll rip your eyes out and skull-fuck you. You understand?”

“I do,” Dawes said, not missing a beat. “So tell me, Fred. What happened to you on Anderson Station?”

* * *

Once the skirmishers had finished sweeping the corridors for stragglers, a detachment of marines escorted Fred into the conquered station. He paused at the fallback position they’d set up just outside the airlock doors. Marines were beginning to return there from other assignments. They were hopped-up on adrenaline and twitchy with post-combat fear. Fred let them see him. He put his hands on their shoulders and told them they’d done a good job.

Some of them came back on stretchers. Yellow dots made flesh. The corpsmen hurried among them, plugging their hand terminals into ports in the downed soldiers’ combat armor, reading the diagnostics, then assigning their place in line for surgery based on the severity of their wounds. Sometimes they tapped a button on their terminal and one of Fred’s yellow dots shifted to black. His command software flagged the fatality and sent a message to the appropriate squad leader and company commander to write a letter to the family. His own task list received a matching entry.