Virtues of War (38 page)

Movement from the far side of the circle caught her eye. Chang was struggling to his feet.

“Hey! Little dark guy. Remember me?”

She gave him a sharp look, willing him to sit down again. He ignored her and grinned at Thapa. It was the first time she’d ever seen such an expression on his face. It was disturbing.

“I’d say pick on someone your own size,” Chang said, “but she’s already bigger than you. So if you want to be the big man, why don’t you try me?”

Thapa didn’t move. “Oh, I remember you, monkey. You’ll get your share soon enough.”

Chang scoffed. “But not from you, obviously. You’re only good for threatening helpless women.” He looked around at the other Cerberans. “I’m the commander of these troopers, and your boss won’t even deal with me. He’s too busy flirting with my assistant.”

The blank faces on the soldiers told Katja that they didn’t speak English. Chang seemed to realize the same thing. He caught the eye of the pilot.

“Hey, flyboy. You speak English?”

The pilot, who up until now had been watching the proceedings with great interest, suddenly twitched. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Chang said. “Tell these soldiers how your boss, Thapa, doesn’t even have the courage to address me. He spends all his time flirting with that little girl.”

The pilot nodded, and spoke in the local dialect. Without understanding a word, Katja guessed that he hadn’t translated what Chang had said. An entire conversation played out between the soldiers, the pilot, and Thapa that included glances toward her and Alayan. There was a growing gleam in the soldiers’ eyes that she knew well enough from years of watching drunken troopers trying to score in nightclubs and at parties. A combination of fear, rage, and revulsion shivered up from her gut.

This wasn’t going to be nice.

Hands grabbed her shoulders and threw her forward into the center of the circle. Her face smacked against the filthy deck, the impact ringing in her ears. Stars flashed before her eyes as she was hauled up onto her knees.

Her vision cleared to reveal one soldier, his rifle now slung over his shoulder, stepping up in front of her. Beyond, a second soldier had his rifle pointed at Chang’s head, and the third had targeted one of the other Five Platoon troopers. She saw the Cerberan pilot moving in her peripheral, no doubt trying to get a good view of what was about to happen.

Her troopers shifted anxiously in their seated positions. Then she heard Thapa’s voice behind her.

“And so it begins, whore. Pleasure these soldiers, or your troopers will die.”

The soldier in front of her began to unbutton his trousers. The stench this close to him was almost overwhelming. Every inch of her body burned with rage.

“Fuck you.”

“Yes, yes, in good time.” Thapa’s mockery was crushing. “But it would take too long to get your armor off.”

The soldier exposed himself before her face. She averted her eyes in disgust, and noticed that the other soldiers were watching in anticipation.

The pilot, however, was watching the soldiers.

“Do it,” Thapa said, “or your troopers die.”

She looked at the pilot. He was fiddling with his fingers in anticipation, his eyes still darting between her and the soldiers. He stared at her for a second. And his fiddling fingers made a series of short, sharp gestures.

Three targets. I take. You lead.

She looked down, hiding her shock. No time for thought. Instinct. Breathing deeply, she raised her eyes to the wretch standing over her.

She bowed her head as if to start…

…and then head-butted her target with all her strength.

There was a second of commotion, then three shots rang out in rapid succession. She rolled back and up onto her feet. All three Cerberan soldiers were falling to the deck. The pilot had a small pistol out and had it trained on someone behind her. He shouted something in the local dialect. She turned swiftly, covering her blind spots, and saw both Thapa and the other lab-coat raising their hands in shock.

From the forward compartment, the second pilot burst in with weapon drawn. He assessed for a moment, then motioned Thapa and the other lab-coat to drop to their knees in one corner of the cargo bay.

Katja turned to look back at the first pilot. He had already retrieved keys from one of the dead soldiers and was uncuffing Chang.

The big sergeant nodded to him. “Hello, Ali.”

“Good to see you, Suleiman.”

The pilot, Ali, then approached Katja. “I’m so sorry it came to that, Lieutenant,” he said as he removed her manacles. “I had to find a way to get them distracted, and in that quick conversation this was the idea these filthy bastards came up with.”

She winced as she brought her arms forward and flexed them. The three Cerberan soldiers were dead by a single shot each. Whoever Ali was, he was no merchant pilot.

He seemed to read her thoughts.

“Warrant Ali al-Jamil, Astral Intelligence.” He held out a hand.

She shook it. “Lieutenant Katja Emmes, Levantine Regiment. How did you know we were here?”

He laughed. “Everybody in Free Lhasa knows you’re here. Your little battle has raised quite the cultural fury. But we also had orders. Lieutenant Brisebois sends her regards.”

That was unexpected.

There was probably something appropriate for her to say, but words escaped her. Instead, she nodded and looked away to see that Chang and another trooper were busy freeing the rest of the platoon.

Soon the three dead soldiers were being manhandled out of the way. A shiver went up through her body and she felt her lip tremble. She pressed her mouth shut and looked over to where Thapa and his companion were kneeling on the deck with their hands on their heads.

The rage returned. “What about them?”

Al-Jamil shrugged. “Thapa’s known to us, but I’d hardly call him a key intelligence target. He’s been the local commissar for years, serving his warlord, but beyond ratting out dissidents and housing soldiers he hasn’t been much of a player. The first time he attracted our attention was when the Centauris set up shop on his farm.”

“With all these speeches, he seems to think he’s pretty important.”

“Yeah, he’s always been a bully and a windbag. That strike against his farm a few weeks ago really flared things up though. When you get back to your ship, you might want to tell whoever beat up and shot those locals during the raid to go easy next time.”

Katja felt her stomach tighten. “Why? What difference did that make?”

“Thapa sort of snapped after that, and took his case to the warlord council. They used those attacks as an excuse to kidnap our people from that Hawk. Notice the ritual retribution? Two killed, two beaten to a pulp.”

Katja thought of Jack’s fresh young face smashed and disfigured. She felt sick.

“Although it was the rescue that really turned things nasty,” al-Jamil added.

“How so?”

“It was considered an open act of aggression against Cerberus. They declared war on us that day, and Centauria apparently decided to honor their treaty with Cerberus.”

She didn’t follow. “How can Centauria have a treaty with a bunch of warlords?”

He shrugged. “It seems to make sense to them.”

Several troopers stood guard over the two prisoners, and the second pilot returned forward.

“We’re breaking off our route to Free Lhasa,” al-Jamil said, “and making a run for deep space. Hopefully an escort from your fleet will meet us before the Cerberans figure out that we’re gone.”

“So we’re taking them with us to
Normandy
?” Katja tried to stay angry as she stared at Thapa, but her churning stomach was sapping her will.

“I guess so. Dipu and I certainly can’t go back.” He scratched his stubbly chin. “It’s been a while since I’ve worn a uniform.”

“And you know Sergeant Chang?”

He nodded, but his expression went neutral. “We’ve worked together.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Lieutenant, like I said, Thapa and that other guy from his farm aren’t really of any intelligence value. Once we get to your ship they’ll be prisoners of war.” He gave her a cold, almost disinterested stare. “But if they don’t survive the trip…”

He handed her his pistol.

“Your call.”

He left her and disappeared into the forward compartment.

She stood in the center of the filthy, blackened cargo bay with the pistol in her hand. All around her, the wounded troopers who had been carried off the hillside lay in various states of consciousness. Three dead enemy soldiers lay piled against the aft bulkhead.

Below her lay hundreds of dead Cerberans both on that hillside and in the ruins of Free Lhasa. High above her, orbiting the distant moon of Laika, was a new, orbital graveyard for thousands of Terrans and Centauris. Countless more had no doubt died in other star systems as this war spread.

Did it all really come down to her and Thapa?

She looked over at the man, on his knees but unbroken. Even against the might of Terra he stood proud, just as his nation would as this war ground on. As a people they were strong, as an enemy they were dangerous.

She looked at the weapon in her hand. Small, with impact-only rounds. But effective.

What would her father think of her? All her life he had preached the nobility of the warrior profession, had raised his children to appreciate the supremacy of their culture and the importance of protecting not only their own world, but the worlds of the colonies.

Protecting them from whom? Even after centuries of space exploration, humanity had found no other intelligent life in the galaxy. The colonization of the eight new star systems had been peaceful and cooperative. It was only after the Silent Century, when Terra had reconnected with the colonies, that problems had started. So from whom was Terra protecting the colonies? The colonists?

Katja stepped closer to the prisoners, seeing them in a new light. Perhaps they weren’t rebels. Perhaps they just wanted the freedom to live their lives.

She shook her head. She knew exactly what her father would think. The role of the warrior was not to question, but to obey. She had always hated him for that. It was one of the reasons she’d joined the Astral Force instead of the Army—the Astral Force still had an officer class. In the Army everyone started as a stormtrooper and worked their way up, always through loyalty and obedience. She could never have done it.

She needed to be able to think for herself.

And standing in the cargo bay of the dhow, surrounded by her troopers and facing the prisoners, Katja Emmes thought for herself.

Maybe this war was Terra’s fault. And more than that, maybe it was
her
fault. But like it or not, she was in a war. And harboring doubts or developing sympathy would serve neither her nor those under her command.

She recalled the footage of
Kristiansand
’s crewmember being dragged around the square in Free Lhasa. She thought hard about the brutal beatings and murder of the hostages. She remembered Jack Mallory’s broken face and hands and the souring of his youthful spirit.

These bastards had intended to rape and humiliate her.

The rage burned up within her again, fueling her. She was a soldier at war. This was her reality now.

The troopers stepped aside as she approached the prisoners.

Thapa glared up at her. “We will never surrender, whore!”

She pointed the weapon at the other prisoner and pulled the trigger. The pistol jerked slightly as the bullet released and punched through the target’s forehead.

Thapa’s eyes went wide in shock, but he didn’t back down. “One day…”

She pointed the weapon at his groin, but a moment of uncertainty struck her. He had planned to have her raped to death, she reminded herself.

The rage enveloped her, gave her strength.

She pulled the trigger.

His gargled scream echoed off the bulkheads. She let the target live in agony for several more seconds, then shut him up with a shot to the head.

She looked around at her troopers. “We are at war. Anyone who isn’t with us is against us.”

The rage faded to a warm, soothing anger. She left the troopers to deal with the bodies and went forward to confirm their safe passage back to
Normandy
.

J
ack hadn’t actually done the math, but he was pretty sure he was spending more time in his cockpit than he was in his rack.

All those preachy regulations about how pilots were required to have eight hours of uninterrupted sleep between flights. Those had been tossed out the airlock now that it was wartime, and his pain meds had been augmented with more of those crazy trooper-drugs. These kinds of amphetamines would be gold-standard on the black market.

He scanned the visual, his flight controls and hunt controls. He was deep into his patrol, and he’d lost all sense of time.
Kristiansand
was on long-range ASW picket, and his Hawk was perched out at the limits of its range, trying to extend the Expeditionary Force’s anti-stealth sensors as far as possible.

The hunt controls began to process the readings from the last line of barbells he’d sown. Tied in with the two previous groups, some bearing lines from
Kristiansand
, and the data passed on from an earlier patrol, Jack was beginning to build a real picture. At least one Centauri stealth ship had been trailing the EF for days, but it hadn’t been able to get close enough to get in a shot at the heavies.

Two of the six new barbells were indicating some kind of gravimetric irregularity. Way out in deep space—halfway between Sirius and the jump gate, and clear of the busy traffic of the ecliptic—the spacetime picture was far less cluttered and even the tiniest disturbances were detectable. He studied the hunt controls further, and input bearing lines from the barbells of interest.

Two more red lines appeared in his 3-D display. They joined five other bearing lines already in place. Doctrine stipulated that at least eight passive bearing lines match before he could prosecute a contact. He had seven, all pointing more or less at the same region of space.

He rubbed his hands slowly across his face and tried to think in four dimensions. How far into the Bulk was this stealth ship hiding? How was it going to try and sneak past the picket?