Trial by Fire - eARC (80 page)

And found himself falling forward, turning, seeing a whirl of faces: Elena, Trevor, Darzhee Kut, Opal—
Opal? No, not here—and not now. Strange how slowly things move when you fall, when you can’t help yourself, when you feel yourself slipping away into unmarked time once again.
Since this morning, he had been reunited with a lover and lost her, learned of the infant growing in her and lost it, rediscovered a lover he had forgotten and child he had never known and now was losing those, too. Because, unfortunately, at this cusp of victory, he had been killed.

As Caine fell forward—faces looming, hands rushing in—he smiled at the banality of his final thought:

Such a busy day.

Off Lada Bay, Sunda Strait, Earth

The young ocean sunfish circled the faintly fluttering object warily, vaguely recognizing in its downward progress the undulations of a jellyfish: preferred prey. But ultimately, the ocean sunfish flinched away sharply, discerning that this was not a food source after all.

The tattered sleeve of Michael Schrage’s uniform, made a colorful motley by service and unit patches, continued its slow-motion descent toward the sandy bottom where the mouth of Lada Bay kissed the Sunda Strait. It was the last piece of wreckage or debris from
Elektronische Kriegsgruppe Zwei
to come to rest. All the others had reached the bottom, and, like this, were too small to ever be of significance to historian-divers or curiosity seekers. None of the VTOLs’ flight recorders survived the catastrophic hits by Arat Kur orbital lasers; no member of the flight survived the day to tell their tale. The few cells that remained of Schrage’s body carried no encoding that marked them as the remains of one of the thousands of humans who had, on that day, courted and were embraced by certain death in the performance of selfless acts against invaders. In Schrage’s case, it had involved placing his ship over Dortmund’s and Thandla’s to give them the extra seconds they needed to ensure that the submarines could safely complete their decisive ascent. That this act was arguably the fulcrum upon which the balance of the day had tipped made it no greater a sacrifice than the thousands of other sacrifices which had been offered up in the streets, airspaces, or waters around the island of Java.

As the tattered uniform sleeve neared the bottom, a sand shark, attracted by a faint scent of blood, snatched away a shred of skin which clung, scorched and fused, to the partial sleeve. Then, with a swirl of fabric, the sleeve met and flattened long and slow against the muddy sand. The shark swam testily off, disappointed at the meager pickings.

For no greater nourishment or savor resided in the unmissed flesh of unsung heroes.

Part Two

June 12–14, 2120

Chapter Fifty-Four

Far Orbit, Sigma Draconis Two

Caine awakened into a gasp before he was aware of the pain, and that it was peaking: a searing stab that started a few inches under and behind his right floating rib and shot straight up to his scapula. As he exhaled the slowly diminishing pain out of his body, Caine felt a residual ache curl up—sullen and persistent—in the place the stabbing sensation was vacating.

Well, it wasn’t like the Ktor nicked me with a pen knife.
He remembered a doctor reading off a list of his injuries as he faded in and out of what seemed like postsurgical anesthesia:
“…deep dorsal penetration resulting in transfixing laceration of the latissimus dorsi, splintering fracture of T5, highly localized pulmonary laceration, and multiple lacerations of the liver. Extensive peripheral trauma is observed throughout the right thoracic…”

He remembered losing focus then, sinking back into the black, and wondering:
Where is Elena? Where is everyone?

He swam back up out of the lightless depths some time later and remembered hearing himself ask.
“How long?”

Both the answering voice and the room’s ambient sound were markedly different.
“You mean, before you’re ambulatory?”

“No. how long have I been unconscious?”

“Well, strictly speaking, you haven’t been fully unconscious since—”

Suddenly, Elena was there in place of the doctor or orderly or whoever. She took his right hand in one of hers, laid the other smooth and firm along his cheek, as though she were poised to hold him harder, to keep him awake, in this world, with her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“For worrying you. And for being such an easy target.”

She smiled and cried without blinking or making a sound.

And was gone
.

And now he was here, without her. Wherever here was. He vaguely remembered being strapped in for shift, a surgical nurse beside him, just in case the shock of transition made him flinch, reopened his wounds.

But that was all he remembered, other than occasionally awakening and trying to separate the conflicting feelings that seemed to clutch his heart, paralyze his tears, shackle his joy: mourning for Opal, longing for Elena, and recurrent guilt at the way the first emotion was so easily overridden by the second.

But as if avenging her rapid passing from his heart, he could feel Opal haunting everything he saw, every breath he drew. For all he knew, he might not be breathing at all had she not drawn the fire that would certainly have been unleashed against Caine, Trevor, and the others who had cowered in that shed in Jakarta.

There was a faint knock at the door.
Thank God. I don’t care who it is, just…
“Come in!”

Downing entered.

Oh. Great. The Lying Bastard himself.

“Awake at last, I see. How are you feeling?”

“Well enough, I suppose.”
And thanks for nearly getting me killed again. Asshole.

Downing drew up a chair. “I’m glad to see you’re alert and ready to move about.”

Caine knew the tone. “Okay, how much have I missed?”

“So, you know you were in cold sleep, again?”

“It seemed a good guess. I just don’t know how long.”

Downing looked sheepish. “Caine, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Coming up out of the postsurgical anesthesia, I think. No, wait. I remember someone else, an orderly—” Downing was looking at the floor, a study in discomfort. Caine sighed, wanted to keep hating him but also knew that Richard had been following orders and doing his job. “Okay, how much time have I lost now?”

“Caine, I suspect the first thing you remember is the preoperative review at the time of your second surgery.”

“
Second
surgery?”

“Yes. We did what we could right after you were hit in Indonesia, but we lost you on the table.”

Caine thought he might vomit. “I was dead?”

“In another few minutes, they would have called the clock and pulled up the sheet. So we had to put you in a cryocell until we could get a different medical team to join us. They were far more advanced, and performed the second surgery.”

“Stateside?”

“Er…no, spaceside.”

“What?”

“Caine, do understand. Not only did we have to rendezvous with the second surgical team as swiftly as possible, but the entirety of the World Confederation Council insisted that you be sent with the invasion fleet to Sigma Draconis. Your unique relationships with so many of the—”

“Whoa, hold on. Sigma Draconis? Invasion fleet? Where the hell am I?”

Downing sighed. “You are in far orbit around the Arat Kur homeworld. We arrived a few days ago.”

“And just where on the calendar are we?”

“It’s June 12, 2120. You’ve been unconscious almost constantly for the last five months. The second surgical team did not reach us until late April. We were well underway to bring the war to the Arat Kurs’ doorstep, and so they had to catch up. Your recovery was dicey and you were kept in postsurgical cryogenic reduction. Not full cryosleep, but the safest way to monitor an uncertain recovery.”

Caine could hardly think through what felt like the hailstorm of mental blows he’d just received. “Then why—why the hell am I even here? Why didn’t you leave me on Earth, with Elena, with Connor, with—?”

“I told you. The Consuls insisted you accompany us. Besides, you couldn’t stay on Earth, Caine. The surgical team arranged to meet us on the way to Sigma Draconis. And frankly, you’d still be in cryogenic reduction, recovering, if our mission here hadn’t hit—well, a snag.”

“So I guess I’m going to have a working recovery before I get to go back home.”

“I’m afraid so, Caine. I’ve brought you this”—Downing held up a datastik—“to help you catch up on what’s been going on over the last five months. Can I get you anything else?”

“No—yes! Is Elena here, too?”

“I’m sorry, Caine, but no. This fleet is only carrying essential personnel. Only you were deemed an indispensable asset, if our interactions with the Arat Kur became—problematic.”

“Yeah, well, if I’m so indispensable, why couldn’t the second surgical team have operated on me before we left Earth, rather than chasing us across umpteen light-years to—?”

But Downing was shaking his head. “No, Caine, you don’t understand. The second surgical team was not on Earth. In fact, it would have taken them longer to get there than meet us on the way.”

Caine felt something cold moving in the general area of his incision, told himself—somewhat desperately—that it was just his imagination. “The surgical team wasn’t on Earth.” He knew the answer to his next question before he asked it. “So it was the Dornaani?”

Downing nodded. “They sent a small diplomatic packet to join our fleet on the way to Sigma Draconis Two. It was also carrying their surgeons and equipment. To whom I am quite sure you owe your life.”

Seems I owe lots of people my life: first Opal, now the Dornaani. Meaning I’ve got twice as many debts as I can reasonably repay. I’ve only got the one life, after all.

“Caine, are you all right? I know it’s a beastly lot of shocks to absorb—”

“No, Richard. I’m okay. But it sounds like our situation with the Arat Kur isn’t, so I’d better get reading, hadn’t I?” Caine shook the datastik meaningfully.

Downing’s answering smile was rueful. “I suppose so. But you don’t need to get started straight away—”

“Yes. Yes, I’d better.” Caine felt his patience slipping as picked up the bedside dataslate.
“It will give me something to do other than think about a son I should be meeting, and the two women I should be visiting with flowers.”
And whether or not I should keep hating your guts, duty and orders be damned.

Downing cocked his head. “Bouquets for two women?”

“Yes, Richard.”
Did he really not understand?
“One bouquet to bring to Elena’s door, and another for Opal’s grave.”

Downing grew pale. Caine looked away as the computer brightened.

A moment later, he heard Downing close the door behind himself.

* * *

The next morning, when Downing returned and knocked on the door—reluctantly, cautiously—Caine was already up and dressed, staring at the dataslate’s screen. It looked as though he’d been reading from it most of the preceding night. “So, it looks like we’ve been pretty busy getting some payback from the Arat Kur while I was napping.”

“Yes, although I think what’s distressed them most is having us show up at their homeworld without a fraction of the warning they were expecting.”

Caine nodded. “Speaking of their homeworld, I see from the battle reports that only two days ago, they were still fighting to retain control of their orbital space.”

Downing nodded. “The Arat Kur defense drones kept our lads on their toes for quite a while.”

“Any losses?”

“Some, but not heavy. Lord Halifax was a step ahead of our opponents all the way.” Downing leaned back. “Which means they are now helpless at the bottom of their homeworld’s gravity well. Which led everyone to expect that they’d finally be willing to discuss surrender terms. But instead they’re not even returning our communiqués. That’s why Visser and Sukhinin finally agreed to rouse you a week early. There are military pressures—strategic pressures—that make it essential we make some progress in regard to negotiations.”

Caine nodded, turned away from his dataslate. “I think part of the problem with the negotiations is that there’s a puzzle piece we’re missing. And because of that missing piece, we’re not fully understanding what we’re seeing.”

“To what are you referring, specifically?”

“I mean we’ve got too many unanswered questions about why the war-averse Arat Kur were so eager to fight us in the first place, and why it seems that the Ktor were laying the groundwork for this invasion of us long before we came to the Convocation.”

Downing leaned back. “What’s got you thinking about that?”

“Well, as soon as we realized that it was the Ktor who had to be behind the doomsday rock, I started to wonder if they recruited the Arat Kur as their ‘plan B’ when it failed.”

“Interesting notion. But why the Arat Kur, specifically?”

“Because I suspect the Ktor were quite aware of the Arat Kurs’ prior knowledge—and fear—of our species as age-old destroyers.”

Downing leaned forward. “Caine, do you really think there’s anything to those folk myths of their lower castes?”

Caine glanced sideways at him. “The Arat Kur—Darzhee Kut, Hu’urs Khraam, others of the higher castes—made oblique references to what humanity had done, had been, before now. As if they were afraid of what we might do to them now because of something we’d done to them in the past.”

“Maybe—or maybe you just misunderstood what was being said, or the translators garbled their intent.”

“Perhaps. But how do you explain their suicide systems?”

Downing frowned. “Technical intelligence and prisoner interviews both agree that the suicide cysts of the Arat Kur
do
seem to be nonstandard equipment. But the Trojan bug wiped out any data that might have shed light on whether those suicide systems were part of a concerted plan or a harebrained option spearheaded by a cabal of superstitious and senile extremists, as the senior surviving Arat Kur claim.”