Dire Steps (4 page)

“I was out of shape and out of touch, and that soldier's example told me I should learn how to be less like me and more like him. If anyone thinks I came out here and rebuilt this unit, they're wrong. This unit, and the men in it, rebuilt me.

“I watched that limping soldier march in here today, and I couldn't have been more impressed. I found something invaluable here, a genuine inspiration, from selfless ­people with indomitable hearts and unbreakable spirits. No matter where I go, and no matter where the Orphans go, I will always be ready to join you again.

“Thank you, and good luck to all of you.”

A
few hurried hours later, Lieutenant Mortas entered the offices of the battalion's intelligence section. He was now dressed in jungle fatigues, dark green with horizontal black stripes and brown smudges, so he stood out from the soldiers in woodland camouflage. The intelligence section was compiling final estimates of the enemy B Company would encounter on Verdur, and Mortas had been dispatched to find out when the report would be ready.

He passed between desks where different screens showed wire diagrams of Sim unit organizations and satellite footage of the heavily vegetated planet. Stepping into the doorway of Captain Pappas's office, he was surprised to see the intelligence officer dressed in jungle fatigues and stuffing personal items into a rucksack.

“You going with us, sir?”

“Of course.” The tall man smiled at him while closing the backpack. “I haven't seen Sammy Sim in the flesh for seven months. What kind of an intel guy would I be if I passed up a chance like this?”

Mortas took a step into the office. “Something going on, sir?”

“Look at you. Less than a year in the zone, and already paranoid.” Pappas lifted his torso armor onto the desk. Its detachable canvas covering sported jungle camouflage, and he began adjusting different pouches that hung on its front. “Good for you. Yes, there is a reason I'm coming along. Seven months ago, B Company was supposed to perform a standard cleanup mission, chasing down Sim holdouts pestering our stations. When you got diverted to Fractus, a corporate security force was sent in to do the cleanup. That's not surprising; one of the stations belongs to Victory Pro.”

Victory Provisions was a powerful corporation operating all over the war zone. Primarily a supplier of military rations, they'd branched out into farming the conquered planets. They were particularly interested in the Sims' preternatural ability to grow food just about anywhere.

“Apparently those security guys weren't crazy about going into the jungle, and stuck close to the sites. When they pulled out, they said everything was calm and suggested there aren't many Sims left. But ground sensors out in the bush suggest there's a sizeable number of Sammies working the area.” Pappas stopped fussing with his gear, and looked Mortas in the eye. “Those sensors are notoriously unreliable, but if the estimates are even close, the Sims on Verdur have been reinforced somehow. Maybe another group of holdouts finally linked up with the original bad guys, or maybe Sam found a way to slip some more troops in.”

“Wouldn't the surveillance satellites pick up the heat signatures, if the Sims were moving around in big numbers?”

“And now you know the real reason why I'm coming along. A reliable expert of impeccable judgment”—­Pappas winked at him—­“to say exactly how many Sims are out there and, if the numbers are correct, how they're not getting spotted.”

T
hough heavily sedated in his Transit Tube, Olech Mortas waited for the dreams. His high rank seldom allowed him to risk traveling in the Step, but as a younger politician he'd used it frequently. On every one of those faster-­than-­light trips, Olech had dreamt he was being visited by important ­people from his past. In recent months he'd consulted an expert on this phenomenon, and had been surprised when it was pointed out that almost all of his dream visitors were dead.

His mind slowly entered dream consciousness, a swimmer rising from dark water toward a lighted surface, and when he emerged it was in a familiar place. A crescent-­shaped room that resembled a lecture hall, with desks and chairs rising away from a raised speaker's platform. The flags of the different alliance planets hung from the high ceiling over the dais, and a silver-­haired man was addressing the assembly.

It was the final session of the old Interplanetary Senate, of which Olech had been a member, and the speaker was Interplanetary President Larkin. Senators from Celestia, Broda, Tratia, Dalat, and all the other settled worlds were standing around Olech, shouting, shaking their fists, outraged by President Larkin's revelation that he'd launched a hundred space probes in an attempt to contact the still-­unidentified entity that had given mankind the Step. Larkin stepped away from the podium, unsurprised by the reaction, holding his palms up to quiet them.

Olech's sleeping body twitched in anticipation of the remembered violence, but there was something very different in the dream. The chamber was silent. Clearly the men and women surrounding him were yelling, and yet there was no sound. His eyes began searching the room, flying over the contorted faces and outraged gestures as if he expected someone to approach and speak to him.

He was bumped by someone, then someone else, and then he was being carried forward as the assemblage surged down toward Larkin. Olech joined the shouting then, trying to get the President's attention, hollering for him to get out, just as he'd done on that fateful day, but even his own voice was silenced in the dream. The doors on all sides began to fly open, and instead of the relief he'd felt at the time upon seeing the different bodyguard teams entering the room, Olech felt the surging fear, the dread of what followed. Many of the armed men had merely been trying to reach their charges, and he'd recognized the looming figure of Faldonado, chief of his own security team, forcing his way toward him.

Olech continued downward, magically passing through the desks and the chairs, getting far closer to the doomed Larkin than he had in real life. Flashes interrupted his vision, the first shots, and then he was engulfed in what had felt like a tornado. Buffeted from all sides by bodies, some fleeing, others diving for cover, and many of them falling as the slugs ripped into them. Still no sound, almost reaching Larkin, the walls behind the President chipping and bursting, the blood starting to appear all over the man's suit. Finally tripping, pressed to the carpeted floor, unable to breathe, and then seeing the arms covering his head and feeling the warm wetness on his back. Faldonado protecting his body with his own, his chest armor too light to stop the slugs, dying right there along with more than half of the Senate.

And finally Larkin's face, resting on the carpet right next to his, dark red on pale skin, and the words that were the only sounds in the dream tumult.

“Finish what I started, Olech. They're waiting.”

Unable to move, unable to breathe, panic setting in even as the light went out of Larkin's eyes. Wriggling, rocking, anything to gain a centimeter's distance between his chest and the unyielding floor. A cry of utter desperation welling up just before the scene shifted, and then he was in another room, another place of loss where his life had changed forever.

Sobbing, holding the hand that was losing strength by the moment, raising his eyes to see the ravaged visage of his wife Lydia in her final moments. A skeleton's face on the pillows, gouged with a network of lines that hadn't been there a few days before. Before the poison had been somehow slipped to her, before the hours of convulsing agony, pain so deep and unreachable that her eyes had bugged out and her lips curled back in a snarl that had lasted for hours.

The torment was ending, and she'd been able to speak, telling Olech that the only way to save the children from the same fate was to pretend he'd never cared for them—­or her. Ever the strategist, her pragmatism had never been more keen than the moment when she'd applied it to herself, her memory, and her survivors. Slipping away, the pain finally gone, and yet spending the last moments convincing him it was the only way.

“You know what you have to do, my darling. You
have
to. For them, for me. Do it for me.”

Remembering his grief-­stricken assent, kissing her hand until it had gone limp, and looking up again to find the wraith lying sightless and still. In the dream, however, that moment was slightly different. The death's-­head turned toward him, and a rumbling voice like the roar of an underground river booming through a cavern spoke again.

“You have to do it.”

 

CHAPTER THREE

“D
ecided to sleep in this morning, young man?” First Sergeant Merrill Hemsley smiled at Lee Selkirk as he walked toward him. A low cloud of brown dust curled around Selkirk's boots as he moved, kicked up by the wheeled vehicle that had just dropped him at the firing range.

“My carefree days with you and your ­people are coming to a close, First Sergeant.” Selkirk gave the older man a grin. “My boss is due to arrive any day now, so I have to clean up my act.”

Calm commands rose from the firing line only a few yards away, as NCOs walking back and forth made sure everyone was ready to start shooting. A low wooden tower stood not far back from the prone shooters, and the gently rising terrain to their front was mostly open for a thousand yards in a mix of tan and brown. At set intervals, numbered boards stood up from the ground to indicate the boundaries of the lanes for each firing position.

Hemsley shook his head. “Sad state of affairs, when an adventurous man like you changes his habits just because his girlfriend is inbound.”

“Girlfriend. Boss. Pretty much the same thing, in my experience.”

“Mine too. That's why I married the Force.” Hemsley turned to survey the line of prostrate figures just as the tower's speaker gave the command to open fire. Though recently retired from the Human Defense Force, Hemsley retained his rank and authority because he was the most senior soldier among the planet's motley group of colonists. The figures on the firing line wore all manner of garb, from fatigues of many designs to civilian work clothes. Both male and female, they sighted down the barrels of Scorpion rifles as the targets presented themselves.

Popping up from shallow holes at varying distances, the silhouettes of charging Sim soldiers would only be exposed for a few seconds. Slugs began dropping targets left and right, the rifles cracking and popping in a cycle that rose and fell as successive targets appeared and vanished. Selkirk noted that many of the silhouettes were still exposed when the allotted time for each of them ran out.

Hemsley folded muscular arms across his chest, disappointed by the marksmanship but unwilling to say so. “I suspect your boss is planning to meet with the Zone Guests before she deigns to visit us.”

Selkirk recognized the derogatory nickname that most of the troops in the war zone used when referring to Zone Quest, the powerful mining outfit that was FC–7777's only other occupant. “Minister Mortas has always had a mind of her own. She might surprise you.”

The last targets disappeared, and the range NCOs called out the cease-­fire. The men and women on the firing line placed the Scorpions on notched stakes next to each position before coming to their feet. Although the Scorpion was designed to function in concert with tactical goggles, that day's exercise was being conducted with only the naked eye. Expectant faces looked out from under an assortment of cloth caps, waiting for the tabulation from the tower.

“I doubt very much that a first-­timer in the zone—­and a rich one at that—­could surprise me too much.”

“Position Number Twelve! Top score—­perfect score!” The speaker crackled the words, and the standing figures all turned to see who had managed to knock down every one of the random targets. A few good sports hooted or clapped hands, but clearly the group didn't recognize the winner yet. It was one of the women, dressed in green canvas trousers, a tan work shirt, and a floppy brown hat.

“You sure about that, First Sergeant?” Selkirk asked, the grin broadening.

The shooter from Position Number Twelve doffed the hat, revealing blond hair that hung just below her ears and a brilliant smile. Confused expressions quickly changed to recognition of a face they'd seen many times on the Bounce, that of Ayliss Mortas, the new Veterans Auxiliary supervisor of their colony.

The firing line quickly converged on her, offering greetings and congratulations.

“So that's why you were late today. Slippery son of a bitch. How'd you sneak a civilian onto my range, Selkirk?”

“Oh don't be like that, First Sergeant—­we're all civilians now, aren't we?”

F
irst Sergeant Hemsley sat on the ground across from Ayliss, with a small campfire between them. “Yeah, there was a whole active-­duty brigade here until your father shook things up. All-­Tratian outfit, thick as thieves with the Guests, treated us like beggars.” The day's training had ended, and all around them scores of other fires lit up the night.

“You don't seem to be beggars anymore.” Ayliss remarked lightly, nodding at the field tray in her lap. When the sun went down, trucks from the veterans' underground settlement had brought out a hot meal along with a small supply of alcohol. “Zone Quest meeting your needs, now that the Tratians are gone?”

“Oh this? I wouldn't be much of a First Sergeant if I didn't know how to get my ­people a few luxuries.” The flames danced across Hemsley's cheeks. “But you already know we're not on good terms with the Guests. Your boyfriend Selkirk's been sniffing around for two weeks now.”

“I didn't see
everything
, First Sergeant.” Selkirk, seated next to Ayliss, went back to consuming a piece of steak that he'd been eating with his hands.

“You came close. Almost got to my secret stash—­before the Banshees caught you.”

Though already aware that the colony included a small group of former Banshees, Ayliss felt a thrill at the mention of the elite all-­female fighting units.

Selkirk gave Hemsley a look of innocence. “I was just taking a little walk, seeing where all those Sim tunnels went.”

FC–7777 had been the site of a modest enemy colony before the humans had conquered it. The Sims had been mining an energy ore that the humans called Go-­Three. Unlike the massive Zone Quest complex atop the nearby hill that almost qualified as a mountain, the Sims had integrated their efforts with the terrain. They'd tunneled into a ridge near the future site of the Zone Quest mine and constructed underground homes as they dug out the ore. Hemsley and his ­people now lived in those passageways.

“That's what the ladies told me. You're lucky your young man is so good-­looking, Minister; the Banshees can get rough with men who misbehave. They usually end up with balls swollen the size of oranges.”

“Oh, they're already the size of oranges.” Ayliss bumped Selkirk with a shoulder, smiling broadly. “How many of the female colonists are former Banshees?”

The war over the galaxy's habitable planets had created an odd division in the Human Defense Force. While men and women served in every branch at every rank, the combat troops sent to fight on the habitable planets were all male. The all-­female Banshees fought in fully contained powered suits, and their ferocity was legendary.

“Only five Banshees, half a squad that opted to stay in the zone when their terms ended. I've got one 117 veterans all told, roughly split between the genders. Except for the Banshees, most of 'em never saw combat.” The First Sergeant's expression grew grim. “But your father gave us this planet, and sent you out here to stop Zone Quest from mining it without our permission.”

“Actually, he sent me to manage the establishment of this colony. Zone Quest is authorized to operate here as long as they provide you and your ­people with supplies and other support.”

“You know they haven't been doing that. And that terminates any agreement.”

“They told my father you've been consorting with a gang of space pirates.”

“Pirates?” Hemsley snorted. “No self-­respecting pirate outfit would be anywhere near this place. They're all focused on the construction zone and the planets with the big bases, where there's something worth stealing.”

“But you have been getting your support from some unauthorized sources. Smugglers.”

“We've been doing a little horse-­trading with passing ship captains, sure. Like I said, I wouldn't be any good at my job if I didn't know how to procure a few things. But we're getting off track here. Your father gave this planet to discharged soldiers as a colony, and that means that Zone Quest either pays us for mining the place, or they leave. And I want to know what you're going to do about that.”

Ayliss set her tray aside and brushed some dirt off her trousers. “Zone Quest is hosting a little ceremony tomorrow, welcoming me. You might want to attend.”

“Oh, I know all about that. I've even seen that great big house they built for you. Only one that's bigger is Station Manager Rittle's.”

“Lee, I'd like to express my thanks to those Banshees now. For not damaging your balls.” Ayliss stood, and Selkirk rose with her. Hemsley and the others remained seated, but Ayliss spoke to them as she and Selkirk moved away. “You really should come to that ceremony tomorrow. I think you'll like it.”

Hemsley came to his feet and walked over to Dom Blocker, who had been standing off to the side the entire meal. Ayliss's small security detachment had joined her at the range once her identity had been revealed.

“Your girl is going to have to do better than that.”

“I'm sure the Minister will do whatever she deems appropriate.”

“Those Zone Quest guys don't fool around, you know. Especially Rittle. He's tough, smart, and devious. She crosses him, she's going to need friends.”

“Never had much to do with ZQ, in my part of the war. Stole some good chow from them, but that was about it.”

Some of the figures around the different fires began to sing just then. It was a popular love song with lyrics changed to match the war zone, and soon the other shadowy figures picked it up.

Sammy man, Sammy man, just where are you tonight?

No one else has touched me in quite the way you have.

You thrilled me, near killed me, but always fulfilled me,

What would I be without you, sweet Sammy the Sim?

“Most of these ­people never saw Sam up close, if they saw him at all.” Hemsley shook his head. “I never liked that song.”

“Me neither. Sam took way too many of my guys for me to joke about him.”

You taught me how to duck and dodge, to shoot and move,

To load, to pray, drag friends away, and quickly too.

Broke my heart, broke my bones, spilled my tears and my blood

How can I ever pay you back, Sammy the Sim?

“Ya know, a long time ago I heard about this shit-­hot platoon sergeant, crazy guy who was supposed to have given up a cushy job protecting rich ­people so he could come out to the zone and suck wind with the rest of us,” Hemsley said.

Blocker moved closer, turning so he could see Ayliss framed against the other fires. “Sure sounds like a crazy guy to me, First Sergeant. Giving up all that for this shit.”

“Heard he reupped out here, too. Finished two hitches, then got his old job back.” The two soldiers exchanged grins, the tension of the conversation with Ayliss easing. “Now why would a smart guy like Olech Mortas rehire somebody he'd fired, after all these years?”

“That's easy. He's not half as smart as everybody thinks he is.”

Can I say I miss you, just between you and me?

I've lived, I've cried, and almost died, all thanks to you.

I have a gift I never gave, but it's all yours

Can't wait to see you again, dear Sammy the Sim.

A
yliss and Selkirk stopped to chat with different groups as they passed among the campfires. The veterans were clearly intending to sleep out under the stars, and had already begun to arrange their bedrolls. After exchanging pleasantries for a few minutes, Selkirk steered Ayliss outside the illuminated ground so that they could approach the Banshees' fire.

“That's them there. The big blonde is named Deelia. She talked the others into accepting their discharges and seeking greener pastures.”

“And the guy she's holding?”

“That's Tupelo, the one I told you about. Deelia's husband. He's supposed to have been one of the mechanics on the Banshees' armored suits. For a guy who just spent seven years as a suit jock, he doesn't seem to want to talk about it much.”

“So you think he's something else.”

“He's got Spartacan deserter written all over him.” The Spartacan Scouts were an elite reconnaissance force made up of conscripts and worse. “The Banshees and the Spartacans have always been simpatico. His skills could be useful.”

A careless boot scuffed the dirt in the darkness nearby, but before Selkirk could react, a lone figure walked up. Unkempt hair, boyish looks, and eyes that glowed with something more than firelight. Selkirk relaxed and put a hand on the man's arm.

“Hey there, Ewing. Coming back from a walk?”

“Oh, the journey's just starting, Selkirk. You know that.” The tone was dry and detached. “Who's your lady friend?”

“This is Minister Mortas. Ayliss, this is the best communications man the Force ever cashiered, Chris­tian Ewing.”

“Hello there. It's nice to meet you.” Ayliss extended a hand, and Ewing swayed slightly when he reached for it.

“I thought First Sergeant confiscated your smoking gear.” Selkirk's comment caused Ewing to smile.

“He's got his stashes, I have mine. Besides, McRaney always has a little something extra for me when he visits.”

Ayliss flashed a meaningful look at Selkirk. Depending on the source, McRaney was either a violent smuggler or an out-­and-­out pirate. Either way, proof that he was working with the veterans could get the colony's charter revoked. She decided to keep Ewing talking.

“So why did the Force get rid of its best commo man?”

“A question I've asked myself many times. It's not like I was the only guy in the fleet who enjoyed a bit of the herb. You know, I only started smoking to keep awake on radio watch. A night in space can last a long time . . . or maybe it never ends. Anyway, nobody cared until I started to ask if anybody else was hearing the music.”