Outriders (45 page)

“Sir,” she said. “I… I don’t have the words…”

Lincoln nodded. “None necessary, ma’am.”

“But…” She struggled for a moment to find something to say, looked over at the Lamprey, where only three of Lincoln’s four teammates were gathered. “The cost…”

“Is one we’re willing to pay. Every one of us.”

“I can never repay it.”

“Ma’am, if you hadn’t done all you did to call for help, we would never have found you. And if we hadn’t found you, there’s a very good chance Earth and Mars would be shooting at each other right now.”

She continued to stare at the Lamprey.

“Hey, María,” he said. “Piper. Listen.” He put a hand on her shoulder, gently turned her away from the ship. “Your actions saved far more lives than they cost. If my whole team had gone down pulling you out, it still would have been worth it. And I mean that, truly. You go on, live your life, guilt-free. Do the good you can. That’ll be thanks enough.”

She watched him for a moment, tears in her eyes. Then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. Lincoln eased an arm around her, patted her back a few times, and then motioned for the medical team. This time when they stepped up and drew her away, she didn’t resist.

After that encounter, Lincoln made it his first priority to find the pilot that had brought them in, to meet him face to face, shake his hand, and express his overwhelming gratitude. He managed to find him and his weapons officer just as they were climbing down out of the cockpit of the gunship.

“Hey Havoc,” Lincoln said, extending his hand. “Lincoln Suh. Growler Lead. I don’t even know how to begin to thank you.”

“Hey Lincoln. Letter of recommendation might be nice,” the pilot said. “Will Barton. This is my brother Noah.”

“Brothers, huh?” Lincoln said, shaking Noah’s hand. “I didn’t know they let family serve together.”

“Normally they don’t,” Noah answered. “But our ratings have been so high together, they had a hard time refusing the request.”

“That might have been our last run anyway, though,” Will said. “I don’t think Command was too thrilled with our little detour there.”

“Hey, if there’s anything I can do for you, you let me know,” Lincoln said. “If I have to fight somebody for you, I will. Guns, knives, whatever.”

“Well, I don’t know what kind of pull you have,” Will said, “but I we could probably use some help from on high when our CO gets hold of us.”

“
I’m
not anything special,” Lincoln said. “But I know a few people who are. I’ll make some calls.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Will said. “We better get going. CO’s hot enough as it is, probably shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

“Thank you again for coming to get us.”

“Hey, no sweat,” Will answered. “It’s a team job.”

They shook hands again, and this time, Lincoln slipped something into Will’s palm. Will looked down at it.

“Sorry I’ve only got the one on me,” Lincoln said to Noah. “I’ll make sure to send you one.”

“519th Applied Intelligence Group, huh?” he said, looking at the challenge coin in his hand. “Don’t think I’ve heard of you guys.”

“You sure?” Lincoln said. “We’ve got patches and everything.”

Will chuckled, and they said their final goodbyes. Though all his thanks felt inadequate, there wasn’t time for more. They parted ways, the Barton brothers off to face their superior officer, and Lincoln to face his team’s loss. Whatever good they’d done getting the girl back and preventing those shots from being fired, all of it seemed grey and distant now, under the light and weight of having lost a man. He knew he’d have to report to Almeida as soon as possible. There was so much to tell.

But first things first. Lincoln returned to the Lamprey and set about the heavy task of unloading his fallen friend.

TWENTY-FOUR

“
T
HAT WAS QUITE
a take you pulled in from
Yoo Ling 4
or
Pride of Europa
or whatever that ship actually was,” Almeida said via viz. “I overheard someone from 23rd saying it was the richest pull he’d ever seen. They’re having a field day going through it all. If I’m honest, I think they’re having more fun just knowing that they’re getting to see it before NID does.”

“I assume you’re sharing,” Lincoln replied.

“Of course. But you know how it is. Normally we’re at the mercy of the Directorate’s decision trees about who gets to see what and when. Some of our folks might be taking a little extra pleasure in releasing it a little bit at a time, instead of all at once.”

“So what’s the outcome? Did we do anything worthwhile out there?”

“It’s not a magic bullet, captain, if that’s what you’re asking. Tensions are still high, fleets are still nose to nose out there. But the material you’ve brought in is bringing a lot of pieces together. A lot of solid intel. It’s making it hard to sell the idea that CMA had direct involvement or knowledge of the attack on LOCKSTEP, or on the Martian facility. And NID seems to have shifted focus, walking back a lot of their earlier analysis. They’re not saying they were
wrong
, of course, but their reports are expressing lower confidence than they were previously.

“The most interesting thing to come out of all this though is the Martian ship that secured
Yoo Ling 4…
that was, uh, what…” Almeida checked his notes. “
CMAV Relentless.
The captain… a Commodore Liao, apparently took the unusual step of requesting UAF support to assist with evaluation and investigation of the vessel.”

“UAF specifically?”

Almeida nodded. “Odd that she’d reach out across the lines like that, but I have to take it as a good sign. Gives both sides something to talk about besides blowing each other up. With enough time, cooler heads may prevail.”

Something in his tone of voice was different, more relaxed than usual. Or, more resigned.

“Colonel,” Lincoln said. “The way you’re talking about all this… it’s giving me a funny feeling that you think things are winding down.”

“Well, Lincoln. As I said, it’s no magic bullet. Nothing ever is. But we take our wins where we can find them. You stopped the immediate threat. You brought that girl home. You changed the conversation. By all counts, that’s a mission accomplished.”

“Not all counts,” Lincoln said. “That team was working for
someone
, colonel. We still don’t know who.”

“Your work took some names off the board,” Almeida said. “Important ones. Sometimes that’s all you get, knowing who wasn’t involved. You know how this works. We don’t always get the bad guy.”

“We’ve got to finish this thing, sir.”

Almeida took in a long, slow breath.

“NID’s still running the show, Lincoln. I let out your leash as far as I could, but there
is
a chain of command, and even
I
have orders to follow. As far as they’re concerned, we’ve done enough.”

“Chase it down, no matter where it leads,” Lincoln said. “Your words.”

“You don’t have to come home, captain,” Almeida said. “If you think there’s something out there that needs doing, I’m not going to sit here and tell you not to get after it. But I don’t have the support, and I don’t have the budget to send you out anywhere. If you tell me you need a couple more days to wrap up, I can maybe buy you that time. But after that, your job on this is done.”

“I need a couple more days to wrap up.”

“Send me a postcard.”

“Oh, I need you to do me a favor. The boys that picked us up, couple of brothers. The Barton boys. They’re going to catch a whole lot of friction for what they did–”

Almeida waved a hand. “I’m already on it, Lincoln. Kennedy’s handling the workup for commendations for them both. And the officer that ordered your transport to withdraw is about to have a very thorough and very unpleasant review of his decision and command process.”

“Roger that,” Lincoln said. “I guess I’ll sign off. I’ve got a lot to do in the next couple of days.”

“Before you go,” Almeida said. “Got somebody here for you.”

He made an adjustment on his end of the line, the view plane expanded, and Lincoln saw another man flopping into a seat next to the colonel. The man smiled, gave a casual wave. Lincoln’s mind twisted with the shock.

It was Mike.

“Hey, captain,” Mike said. “Just wanted to let you know I’m real sorry I’m missing out on whatever you’re up to. Med won’t let me fly for at least a week.”

Lincoln’s brain couldn’t process, couldn’t accept he was seeing. Mike was dead. Mike was gone. And Mike was sitting there, next to the colonel, talking to him like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t died with his head in Lincoln’s hands.

“You all right, Link?” Mike said.

They’d called the Process death-proofing. Lincoln knew that. In his mind, he knew it. But this was the first time he’d seen what it meant, what it really, actually meant. And more than that, they’d loaded Mike’s body up for transport only a couple of hours before; there was no way he could have made it back to Earth already.

“Mike?” Lincoln said.

Mike smiled and chuckled. “If I were a less clever man, I might make a joke about you seeing a ghost.”

“It’s… it’s good to see you, Mikey,” Lincoln said. “Real good.”

He meant the words, felt them truly, but they didn’t come out that way. Mike nodded, seeming to understand.

“Medical said the other one was too torn up to be worth it,” he said. “Had to pull one out of the freezer.”

Lincoln nodded, swallowed. Tried to give a smile. He knew he should be elated. And he was, in a distant way. The joy just hadn’t made its way through the shock yet.

“Well…” he said. “You look good.”

“Of course I do,” Mike said, flashing his smile. “I
am
the pretty one, after all.”

Lincoln chuckled, and for some reason that moment of mild humor broke the dam. His chuckle turned into a laugh, and the laughing brought a flood of relief and acceptance. It really was Mike.

“Hey, that wasn’t supposed to be a joke,” Mike said.

“Yeah,” Lincoln said. “It wasn’t funny anyway. I’m just glad you came through all right.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Mike. “I woke up about six pounds heavier, and my deadlift max is down by fifteen.”

“It’s not unusual for a replica to lag behind by a few days,” Almeida said. “Small price to pay to get you back.”

“For
you
, yeah,” Mike said to the colonel. “I’m the one’s gotta work to get back in shape.” Then he looked back at Lincoln, and the lightness in his eyes melted away. “How’d it uh… how’d it happen, anyway?” he asked.

“How’d you get…” Lincoln said. He didn’t know what the proper way to talk about it was.

“How’d I die, yeah,” Mike said.

“You don’t remember?”

“Uh, no, no way. I definitely don’t remember. They don’t let you. Who would want to?”

“Back in the early days,” Almeida said, “they used to keep everything intact right up until the moment of death. Thinking was, when you came back, you could analyze everything, learn from your mistakes. Turns out being able to recall your own death had a less than positive psychological impact. So now they spin you back a few minutes, before you get any serious trauma.”

“Oh,” Lincoln said. He gave Mike a quick account of what happened, without going into too great of detail.

Mike shook his head. “Why’d I have my faceplate open? I gotta stop doing that. Mas’sarnt was mad, huh?”

Lincoln nodded. “I’m sure she’s got a few choice words for you.”

“They’ll have to wait,” the colonel said. “You can have a proper reunion when you get back. Forty-eight hours, captain, then I’m bringing you in. Use your time wisely.”

“Yeah, understood.”

“Take care, Lincoln,” Mike said. “I won’t be there to watch over you this time.”

“Roger that,” Lincoln said. “Enjoy the vacation.”

“I’d rather be on mission.”

“We’ll keep it boring. Lincoln out.”

T
HE WHOLE TEAM
shared Lincoln’s relief when he told them Mike was already up and about, though, also like Lincoln, each of his teammates seemed to be holding on to some measure of grief as well. It was strange how much the loss still clung to them, even knowing their friend was back on base, safe. There’d be more to process later, some mix of emotions to sort through when they all got home. For now, though, they each compartmentalized the incident in their own way. There was still work to be done, and not a lot of time left to do it.

The answer Lincoln was hunting for came, as it always seemed to, through Thumper. She’d gathered them all together around her hacked-together workstation.

“You remember that thing you told me not to tell you about?” she said. “The work Prakoso was doing… the NID stuff?”

“Yeah,” Lincoln said.

“Well, turns out what I asked him to do wasn’t all he was doing.”

She pulled up a file on the display for them all to see. An old NID packet, from some deep archive. It was titled OPERATION HUNTER JANES. It’d been heavily redacted, but there were some parts that the censors had missed, or had left open because there was nothing deemed sensitive or identifiable. And though the gaps were substantial for any outsider, Lincoln had spent enough time in special operations to recognize a few key hallmarks. He couldn’t tell exactly what had happened, but he had enough of a framework to understand.

And among those unredacted sections were references to codenames. References, for example, to a Mr Self.

“Why do you think Prakoso was digging around in this?” Lincoln asked.

“Because it ties directly back to whoever was running these hits on NID,” Thumper answered. “I think he knew a lot more than he let on. And I think he wanted to know why.”

“You sound pretty sure,” Wright said.

“That’s because I am. The Directorate archive had some footage, some old voice data locked away. I fed it to Veronica, and compared it to the logs we pulled off
Yoo Ling 4.
There was a match.”

Thumper pulled up a series of images, taken from surveillance footage, mostly. At first, Lincoln thought it was several individuals, but on closer inspection he realized they were all of one person. The same woman. Vector’s words flashed through his mind.
The woman.