The Terran Mandate (12 page)

Dutybound

The only clue Dekker and his Marines had
was the scattered prints made by the Paladin's Cat when it landed west of the
compound. Any tracks that might have been made after that had already been
swept away by the wind.

That had been twenty nine hours before.
Since then, Dekker's nineteen troop carriers had followed behind the two Bravo
One Nine carriers as they scurried across the night desert floor scanning for
any sign of the Paladin.

Dekker stared at the navigation monitor
in front him, half his body numb from the gyrations of the carrier careening
across the gullies and shallow folds of terrain sprawled across the desert. The
suspension squeaked as the carrier traversed the uneven terrain. He had stopped
looking through the windshield long before as the lights crawling over the
unending terrain had put him into a hypnotic state.

Sitting in the driver's seat next to
him, Lt. Simmons kept the throttle in her left hand pushed forward while her
right hand flexed the control grip to keep the carrier on course as they
approached an abandoned bivouac tower where they would stop, finally, and rest.

"Two kilometers," Dekker said.
"Maintain this bearing." He eyed Simmons, wondering how she could
maintain the concentration necessary to pilot the vehicle over the monotonous
terrain for hours on end.

"We'll hold up there for a bit
while you send a squad to pick up the freighter pilot."

"I'll go, sir."

"You've been driving all night,
Lieutenant. Send a squad. You need some sleep."

"I'll be fine, sir." She
tapped her chest pocket. "The miracle of chemistry."

"Yeah, that will drop you right on
your ass at some point. Soon."

"PDI isn't far, Colonel. I'll rest
up after that."

"Lieutenant." Dekker turned to
face her, waiting for her to give him a quick nod acknowledging him. "Do
you ever say 'yes, sir'"?

She smiled. "Yes sir, it's been
known to happen from time to time."

The glow of the headlights washed up
against the hulking shadow of the bivouac tower, it's composite spire piercing
the sky. Simmons turned the carrier towards the entrance and yanked back the
throttle, bringing the vehicle to a sliding stop. She leaned forward against
the console deck and let out a long breath. She sat back and shook her head,
kicking her short bonnet of red hair back and forth. Dekker suppressed a smile
and shook his head.

"I hope I'm not around when you
find your limits Lieutenant."

"I didn't get where I am by looking
for them, sir."

"Fair enough."

Dekker unlatched his door and eased his
leg onto the foot step welded to the side. He groaned as his muscles protested
with a stabbing ache. He swung out of the vehicle and thumped to the ground,
staggering for a moment before regaining his balance. He grimaced and shook his
head, then took a deep breath.

The rest of the battalion carriers
rolled in behind them and maneuvered into three company groups of six vehicles
each, forming a semi circular formation in front of the tower.

Dekker stepped around the front of the
vehicle as Lt. Simmons dismounted.

As she turned to head for the second
carrier, he said, "Hold on, Lieutenant."

She turned back around. "Sir?"

"We need to go over something
before you move out."

"Go ahead, Colonel."

He placed his hand her shoulder and
pulled her aside as he started walking away from the carrier. "Who do you
work for, Lieutenant?"

"I'm attached directly to MEF
headquarters."

Dekker stopped walking and stepped in
front of her. She looked up at him, her expression disinterested and receptive
at the same time. He didn't see it in her eyes - she was good at hiding a lie.

"And what are your orders?"

"To assist you with
reconnaissance."

Her eyes twitched once, then her face
lapsed into a practiced expression of boredom.

"Do you know where the name for my
battalion comes from?"

Simmons knitted her brow.
"Actually, no."

"The commander of the S-2 Special
Intelligence and Operations Team should know the background of the officers
she's working with."

Her mouth fell open - just enough to let
him see her facade shatter. She pressed her lips back together and looked past
him.

Dekker nodded, allowing just enough of a
smile to show his amusement. "Well, one thing your Colonel Harris and I
have in common is a healthy dose of uncertainty about all this. But even he
doesn't know about the Enforcer. It's something they don't keep records
about."

"Well, so you know something about
me," Simmons said. That doesn't mean what you say is true."

"Very good, Lieutenant. But neither
do you know that what I say isn't true. You need to listen to me now."

"Alright, Colonel. I'm
listening."

"What you need to understand is
that while our orders may differ, our mission is the same. We're here to find
the Paladin and bring him home."

"Agreed."

"What are your orders,
Lieutenant?"

"As I said, to help you with
recon." He could still see she wasn't telling him everything, but she
didn't work too hard to hide it this time.

"That's good enough for now, I
suppose."

Dekker resumed his walk, his hands
clasped behind his back. "I had to put down one of my Marines after the battle."

"Sending them below can't be
easy."

"No. I was down there. I pulled the
trigger myself. I killed him."

She glanced at him, her eyes searching
for something in his now. "Why would you put yourself through that?"

"I need to make sure it still gets to
me. There are some things a person shouldn't get used to."

"Sounds like your punishing
yourself, Colonel."

"Maybe so." He stopped walking
and turned to face her, making sure she was paying attention. "Here's the
thing. There is a difference between enduring the unthinkable when it results
from your own initiative and when it happens as a result of following
orders."

"How is that possible?"

"When you follow orders, you can
assign the consequences of your actions to duty. It's a buffer between the
horror of a man's actions and his own soul."

"Not sure I see it that way,
Colonel. It's the moral duty of any officer to take responsibility for their
actions."

"You're young. You'll get over
that." Her expression glazed over.

"But here's what you need to
understand right now. I'm tired of this war. I'm tired of killing Marines. The
Paladin is my oldest friend and the only man I've ever trusted."

"And now you're hunting him
down."

"That's right. And if bringing him
home will end this war, then that's what I will do. If this freighter pilot
helps me accomplish that mission, then I will do whatever it takes to find out
what he knows."

"As will I, sir."

"No, you won't. You think you will,
but you won't. I have no doubt about your commitment to your mission and your
orders, but you have to understand. I am still a man who can do the unthinkable
in the name of following orders. The fact that it gets to me - the fact that
I'm still not used to it - none of that will stop me. That's what I learned to
do as the Enforcer"

"Stop you from what?"

"Lieutenant, if that pilot knows
where the Paladin is, we need to find out what he knows. It would be best for
everyone if you found that out before he gets back here. It really would be
best if I didn't have to do it my way."

Interrogation

The tower basement was musty, but the
power arrays were still generating enough power for them to get the lights on
and power up the single recovery chamber embedded in the concrete wall. Dekker,
a detail of three Marines and the senior corpsman stood facing the contraption.
The sound of footsteps coming down the staircase echoed around the room as Lt.
Simmons lead two of her men dragging the handcuffed pilot into the room. His
face was bloodied and swollen, but he was conscious. The two men marched him
into the center of the room and let him drop to the floor. The man grunted as
his knees smacked the concrete. He looked tired and worn down by pain, but he
didn't look scared. His eyes were too vacuous to be defiant, but whatever he
knew was hidden too deep for the claws of pain to get at.

Dekker glared at Lt. Simmons.
"What's this?" he asked.

"Sir, this is our freighter
pilot." She stood as straight as she could, despite the fatigue Dekker
could see creasing her face.

"Go on," Dekker said.

"Sir, he's some kind of tough guy.
He won't talk."

Dekker lifted a brow and approached the
pilot, deliberately thumping the concrete with the heel of his left boot as he
walked. "Is that right?"

"I need to get him back home for a
sequenced debrief. We'll get it."

The pilot stared at the floor as Dekker
paced in a circle around him. "Yeah, we don't have time for that." He
nodded at his detail.  The three armed Marines stomped over to the pilot and
hoisted him to his feet. Dekker moved to the console on the wall next to the
chamber and pounded the hatch release with the back of his fist. The steel
latches holding the door in place clunked open and let it swing open. His
Marines threw the pilot into the chamber and he crumpled to the floor.

Lt. Simmons took a step forward and
blurted out, "Colonel." Dekker shot her a glance. She didn't say
anything more, but she held her position. Dekker turned back to the pilot and
crouched down in front of him. "Look here, tough guy. I get it. Major
Walker, he's -" Dekker tilted his head to the side. "He's one of
those men people are willing to die for even when they finally realize just
what that means." Dekker cupped the man's chin, forcing him to look up.
The eyes were glassed over, but not in the way of defeat. Whatever was left of
him was buried deep inside, locking out the world around him. Dekker let go and
the man's chin fell to his chest. "I know what it's like. I was his Foot
Guard at one time. Did you know that?  I would have died for that man without a
second thought. But you and I know it's more than that. It's not about the
dying. It's like you're sacrificing yourself on an altar to the last thing
about us that makes any of it matter."

Dekker stood up and walked back to his
detail. "Yeah, I get all of that." The armed Marines pulled the man
back out and lay him on his back. Dekker shut the chamber door, then caught the
corpsman's eye and nodded. He resented the sense of defeat settling into his
heart, but he knew words would never work.

The corpsman knelt down and placed a
recovery transmitter on the pilot's chest. The pilot whimpered and his eyes
flared. The corpsman slapped the top of the transmitter and a thin veil of
orange light spread out over the pilot's body. A pop filled the room as the
light flashed and then vanished. The pilot was gone.

The coils behind the chamber filled the
room with a growling hum as the chamber flooded with cold steam and the
millions of microscopic cells scrambling to assemble themselves. A form began
to coalesce as the steam gathered into the vortex that preceded every
re-assembly. The form gurgled and then, just as it became recognizable as a
human being, let out a screeching wail that drowned out the coil's hum and the
vortex slashing at the sides of the chamber. It reached through the thick
plastic of the chamber door and filled the room as if it were the only sound in
the universe. Dekker clenched his fists, forcing himself to keep his eyes open
and remain standing even as his knees started to buckle.

The steam receded and the latches
holding back the chamber door slammed open. The door swung open and the pilot
tumbled out onto the floor, gagging. Dekker turned the man over on his back and
saw stark terror staring back at him as the man worked his jaw, gasping for
air. He coughed and reached up to clutch at Dekker's chest. Dekker waited for
the man to recover and said, "About now, you would normally receive a
post-construction sedative. They say it's to ease the discomfort. But it's
really to keep you from losing your mind. In the early days, they didn't have
the sedative. Four, maybe five rounds, was all anybody could take." He
signalled for the corpsman to re-attach the transmitter. The pilot hadn't
recovered control of his own muscles and weaved his hands through the air as if
he were in a drunken stupor as he tried to push it away. The corpsman lay the
transmitter on the pilot's chest. Dekker grabbed the pilot's hands and said,
"Then they just went off the deep end."

He stood up and told the corpsman,
"Scan him this time." He pulled a gray box from a cargo pocket and
handed it over. The corpsman gasped, jerking his head back. Dekker shoved the
box closer. "Scan him." The corpsman frowned and then reached out to
take the box, cradling it in his hand as if it were a bomb ticking down the
last seconds of his own life.

"Colonel!" Lt. Simmons yelled
from across the room. "This is not a sanctioned protocol. We do not do
this sort of thing anymore."

Dekker held the corpsman's eye for a
moment longer before turning to face Lt. Simmons.

"Lieutenant," he said,
striding towards her. "You need to calm down." He stopped close
enough that he could feel her breath as she jutted her chin out, fuming.
"Or I'll put you in a tube myself."

"You're threatening a commissioned
officer of the MEF S-2 division?" she asked. He probably would have said
the same thing in her position. "Interrogation is my jurisdiction. Me.
Bravo One Nine," she said.

"And if you had done your job, we
wouldn't be standing here, Lieutenant!" he yelled. He stared at Lt.
Simmons, burrowing his gaze into her until he detected a quiver run along her
cheek. In a low voice, he said, "I told you to get him to talk so it
wouldn't come to this. Remember?"

"I remember."

"You failed to follow my orders,
Lieutenant. Do you want me to allow the mission to fail because of that?"

Lt. Simmons glanced away. "Of
course not, sir."

"Then step back and let me do your
job." Her eyes flared, but she said nothing. He stepped aside so she could
see the pilot writhing on the floor. He was giving her a choice. Her eyes
fluttered and she stepped back.

Turning back to the corpsman, Dekker
said, "Again."

The pilot scrambled to get to his feet.
"No!" he shouted. The Marines wrestled the pilot back to the ground
as Dekker knelt down next to him and looked into his eyes. "We're going to
scan you this time. You can try to block it. And then we'll do this a third
time. After that, it gets dicey. You know, forcing me to do it the hard way -
that's honorable. They'll whisper about you for generations. The man who tried
to save the Paladin. While we're in there, in your mind, looking for what we
need, I want you to think about this. When we get to the point where you've
lost your mind and all you have left are the nightmares that never let you go
-  when we get there, I'm not going to sedate you. I'm not going to kill you.
No. I'm going to strap an IV to your arm and make sure you never go back to
sleep. And those nightmares will be there, rampaging inside your head. And
you'll never be able to run away from them." Dekker pointed at the
corpsman, who planted the transmitter on the pilot's chest and slapped the
device, triggering the next veil of light to consume the pilot and start the
chamber coils rumbling again.

Dekker clenched his teeth so hard they
hurt. An ache welled up inside and seized his chest, straining to gush out of
him like an erupting volcano. He pushed it back down with the force of his own
will and felt it recede, but not nearly far enough. He turned his head away
from the others as a single tear found its way onto his cheek. He shook his
head, flinging the drop away. He had orders. Like his outnumbered Marines
holding back the Second Brigade, his own will seemed to look back at him and
ask a question.

How
long would orders be enough?