Bounty

• 4 •

I remember kids who thought they could end wars. Hell, I remember being one of those kids. Neighborhoods have always been full of them, running around with plastic blasters and blowing the heads off Ryph, pretending we’re shooting the last shot in the war, bringing it all to a heroic end. When we’re young, every imaginary battle ends with heroics. Finales come with a bang. Then you get older, and you see that life ends in wrinkles and whimpers.

Looking at Scarlett now, as she looks at me, and her ridiculous words about ending wars hang in the air, I remember more than just the fact that I loved her once; I almost remember what it felt like. I almost feel it again. Love comes as fast as shrapnel in the trenches. It’s indiscriminate. It gets whoever’s closest. When it’s your time, it’s your time. They assign someone to the bunk beside you, and it’s like a grenade landing in your lap.

I vaguely remember what I felt like before the war took my hope, and I vaguely remember what Scarlett was like before the war did something screwy with hers.

“I don’t have room for your dreams,” I tell her. “You shouldn’t have come here. I don’t know how we’ll get you out, but I’ll help you do that. It’s a capital offense, but I’ll help you. Maybe the next trader—”

“I’m not leaving here without you,” she says. “A friend will come for me. For us both. Someone you know—”

I wave her silent and take a step back, like she really is a bomb that might go off. “Scarlett, I can’t leave here.” And then I say what I’ve known for a while but haven’t told anyone at NASA, haven’t even admitted to myself, not out loud. “I’m never leaving here,” I say. “It’s a two-year, but I’ll re-up. This is like the army, except I’ll last longer. This is where I belong.”

She looks me up and down. Frowns. Her eyes glisten. “This isn’t you,” she says.

“It is,” I tell her. And I nearly tell her my secret. My dark one. She always got the truth out of me in the past, but never without a fight. I change the subject in a hurry. Any kind of crazy is better than my kind. “So how do you think you can end this war?”

Scarlett adjusts the small pack slung over her shoulder. She pulls out a weathered paperback. Holds it up so I can see the cover.

“You’ve read this?” she asks.

The book is Salaman’s Battle. It’s part of the Frontier Saga by T.W. Rudolf. Of course I’ve read it. It’s trench pulp, and practically required reading for grunts. We pass these novels around like VD. I read the entire series until the pages turned to mud and the spines fell apart.

“Sure,” I say. I smile. “Are we going to take out the Lord hive with a planet buster like Corporal Charlie Sikes does in book twelve?” I say this with the lilt and enthusiasm of a twelve-year-old planning the next stage of the neighborhood invasion from behind Mrs. Wilkerson’s petunias.

“How much do you know much about Rudolf?” Scarlett asks, clearly not amused.

I shrug my one good shoulder. “I probably scanned the back of a book or two.” Even before she turns the tattered paperback around, I can already see T.W.’s bald head, the fatigues he’s always wearing, and that angry I-served-in-the-military-so-buy-my-book-I’ve-seen-the-real-shit scowl.

“There’s no such person,” Scarlett says. “He’s as much a fiction as his stories.”

I raise my hand like I’m in class. “So we expose the conspiracy, and the war ends!”

“The person behind T.W. Rudolf is a former marine intelligence officer named Porter Mencius. Porter was the numero uno translator for the armed forces during the Orion Offensive.”

“I’m still not getting it—”

“These are repurposed Ryph novels, is what I’m trying to tell you.”

This takes my brain a few moments. Scarlett waits patiently.

“Bullshit,” I say, when I realize what she’s suggesting. “You’re saying someone translated Ryph novels, and that’s what we’ve been reading? But we kick the Ryph’s asses in those books. In the end, I mean. Right after it looks hopeless and all.”

Scarlett does a dogfighting maneuver in the air, twisting one hand after the book. “They switch everything around,” she says. “We become them. They become us.” Now the book is chasing her hand. “He changed a few other details, of course. What happened is, Porter fell in love with the original stories in translation, even fell for the Ryph a little, and he figured he could make a quick buck. What were the Ryph going to do, sue him? They were already trying to kill us all. He just had to change the names and which side was which.”

I think back on some of those books, many of which I read half a dozen times. Something is trying to fit together in my mind when Scarlett gives me a nudge.

“Don’t you see? We’re the alien horde.”

She gives me a moment to let this to sink in. It doesn’t quite.

“When someone told me who the author was, and where these books came from, I went and checked a few other races we’ve made contact with. The Hoko, the Tryndians, the Capricorns. Guess what? They all have a long and rich popular culture dealing with alien invasions. Every one of them. And it all starts about the time each race put something into orbit for the first time.”

“Okay,” I say, seeing this point at least. “That makes sense. We’re all scared shitless out here. It’s a scary place.”

“It’s worse than that. Don’t you see? We fear what we know we’ll become. As soon as we can go out, we start worrying about something heading our way. To the Ryph, we’re everything they thought we’d be. And we think the same of them.”

“But they are. Look at what happened on Delphi.”

“And they say look what happened on Arcturus. And we say Delphi happened first. And they say Arcturus was worse. And both sides are run by fear. You know why?”

I nod. “Sure. Because fear is how you hedge your bets. If you’re wrong, you wiped out some friendlies. Oops. But if you’re right, you saved your ass and all of humanity’s.”

“No, that’s not why. It’s because fear sells. It’s because war is sport. And it’s also very good business. We warred with ourselves until we found someone to war with together.”

“Well, there you go,” I say, snapping my fingers. “There’s no stopping it. So why try? Look at me—” I wave my arm at the beacon. “I’m the hero because I checked out.”

“That’s exactly right,” Scarlett says. “The problem is, you didn’t take the rest of us with you.”

I have no idea what Scarlett means by this, but all the crazy talk has me thirsty. Or I just want something to occupy my free hand. I cross to the small sink by the lounge and pour Scarlett a water, then I drink from the tap. I hand her a food pack as well. I don’t have any appetite, but I grab one for myself. Tearing the pack open with my teeth, I squeeze some of the protein paste into my mouth. It tastes better heated up, but the army taught me not to care.

“Tell me what you remember from that last day,” Scarlett says. I notice she’s eyeing the nasty knot of scars that peeks out from under my slinged arm. I haven’t seen her or talked to her in years. She shouldn’t know a damn thing about that day. Then I remember she tracked me here by hacking navy files. She knows the same bullshit story they know.

“More than I care to,” I tell her, chewing the paste and fighting to swallow.

“I want to hear about it. And not what’s in the reports. Tell me what really happened.”

I turn away from her, finish the paste, and throw the packet in the recycler. Staring out the porthole, I can see one of the ships moving through the asteroid belt. There’s the second ship. No sign of the ninja, which makes me smile.

“We pushed into the hive on Yata. Our platoon was pinned down. As was Echo company. Everyone in my squad ate it. That left me in charge. I was going to set off the nuke, wipe out the whole hive—”

I stop right there. I’ve never told this next part to anyone. Why do I do this for her?

“What happened?” she asks.

I stare out the porthole.

Scarlett takes a step toward me. I can hear her picking her way carefully through the debris scattered everywhere. She was always good at this, picking through the debris. When her hand lands on my good shoulder, I flinch, which feels like a knife slipping between my ribs.

“I know what happened,” she whispers. “I just want you to admit it.”

I look down at the floor. My eyes are watering. I blink that shit away.

“I didn’t do it,” I say. “My finger was on the button, but I didn’t do it. Couldn’t do it.”

“You didn’t set off the bomb,” she says. “And next thing you know, a Ryph Lord is standing over you.”

I nod. My voice would crack if I tried to use it. I feel my hand trembling. Scarlett’s hand is still resting on my shoulder, burning me there.

“And he opened you up,” she says. Her hand drifts down my bruised ribs and touches my stomach. My scars. I haven’t been touched in so long. I’d forgotten what it feels like. I nod.

“And then you killed him, and their entire army fled the battlefield, and you saved the day.”

“Yes,” I whisper, lying through my teeth, pretending my account of things was how they really were.

“But you didn’t kill him, did you?”

I shake my head. Tears roll down my cheeks.

“You didn’t do shit.”

I nod. I can feel her breasts pressing against my back.

“Why didn’t you set off that bomb?” she asks me.

I don’t say anything. I just concentrate on her hand. I place mine on the back of hers, holding it there.

“Because of the company you would’ve lost?” she asks.

“No,” I whisper.

“Why, then?”

I can’t say.

“Tell me. C’mon, soldier, just spit it out. I know it’s right there. The truth is on the tip of your tongue.”

I don’t want to say.

“Tell me why you didn’t do it,” she commands.

And my will shatters. Maybe because of her touch. So I tell her the truth.

“Because of the hive,” I whisper, barely loud enough for anyone to hear. “I couldn’t do it because of the hive.”