Hellburner

Chapter 12

GLOVING lines converged. Dekker blinked sweat and the simulator manufactured an uncharted rock on split second Imminent for the carrier. Missed the bastard and redirect to take it out on the fly-Got it, got the beta target before the bloodflow caught up with his knees. Targets coming.

Carrier showed up on the scope. That was the priority— your carrier showed and you got the come-home, and you were done, far as you could clear it a path, granted you could get through the effect shield without glitching.

Soft and smooth—you got the slight buffet as you came through the shield, momentary LOS of everything on the boards and you had to know its v, the extent of those shields, how close you were going to be when you came through the envelope—damned close, damned close. Touch. Slight mismatch. Within tolerance. Probe caught. Mate.

Power down.

Good run, solid run. Not flashy, except that UO and making that shot. He could cut the sim, meltdown and unbelt, he’d earned it and a hot shower. Fine control when you’d been hyped was hell, and switch-off was the copilot’s job, if there’d been a co-pilot this sim—he wouldn’t lose points on that. But he was a fussy sumbitch. He set his switches. He set every effin’ one.

Damn, it felt good. Felt solid.

Home again.

He shifted his legs as the pod opened and he could unbelt and drift out. Breath frosted, while sweat still ran under the flightsuit.

Take that in your stats, Tanzer.

Card game went on, Ben and Sal running up favor points on Almarshad’s and Mitch’s guys, and the spectators drifted down there. “Hey, Dek,” came back, but Dekker tried to ignore it and concentrate on his math and his set-targets for tomorrow’s run.

Conversation floating back from the table said, “It’s one thing in sims. Live fire’s going to be something else.”

“You just hit ‘em,” Ben said, and took a card. “Dots is dots.”

“No way,” Wilson said. “Ask Wilhelmsen.”

“They don’t have to,” Mitch said, and a chill ran through Dekker’s bones. He was thinking what to say to shut that up when Meg said, acidly, “Dunno a thing about Pete Fowler, mister. Nice guy, I s’pose, and I highly ‘predate his help, but he’s not the one does the thinking.”

“Still not live fire, Kady.”

“Ease off,” Dekker said, and shoved his chair back.

“Hey,” Mitch said. “No offense.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Meg said, and dealt out cards. “Testosterone’s not the only asset going. Shepherds seriously got to rethink that.”

“Meg,” Sal said.

“Hey. I’m easy.”

“You been easy, Kady.”

Meg pursed her lips. “You a virgin, Mitch? I swear I don’t know.”

“Hold it, hold it,” Ben said.

“The program’s making a serious mistake,” Mitch said, “putting you girls in here. Tape can’t give you the wiring, Kady, there’s a reason they never pulled women in on this program—“

“Yeah,” Meg said acidly. “Look at the scores, Mitch.”

“Meg,” Dekker said.

“Tape off a real pi-tut, Kady.”

That tore it. “Mitch,” Dekker said.

“No, no,” Meg said coolly, “not a problem, Dek. Man’s just upset.”

“Bitch.”

“Yo,” Sal said. “You want to match score- and score, Mitchell?” -

“Just hold it,” Dekker said into the rising mutter from Mitch’s crew and Almarshad’s. “We don’t need this.”

“We don’t need any damn tape,” Mitch said, “and we damn sure don’t need any tape off any women. Reactions aren’t there. You’re never going to see a female pilot on this ship, Kady, you don’t see ‘em in the carriers, you don’t see ‘em in the riders, and you’re never going to. You’ll crack under fire, you’re going to screw this whole damned program, on a rep you didn’t earn.”

Meg said, with a riffle of cards, “Cher, you got a truly basic misconception, there. Ship’s aren’t shes, they’re hes— you got to make love to them the right way, got to keep ‘em collected so you both get there...”

Laugh from some of the guys, thank God. Wasn’t funny at the table. Mitch was pissed. Mitch was being a son of a bloody bitch, was what he was being, hurt feelings, and a mouth that made you want to knock him sideways.

But Mitch gathered up the cards Meg dealt. “You’re in over your head, Kady.”

“Cher, I had a shuttle go dead once, lost a motor on lift, landed in the Seychelles, and that was a bitch. I haven’t sweated since.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah. Tell me yours.”

Mitch glowered a moment, then laid down a card and said, “Well-divers are fools.”

“You got that,” Meg said. “I resigned it.”

“Didn’t resign it,” Sal said. “They threw you out.”

“Huh. I was getting tired of it. Too much same stuff. You seen Luna once, you’ve seen it. Big damn rock.”

“Smug bitch,” Mitch said, in better humor. Dekker eased back and found himself shaking, he was so wound up. But Meg wasn’t. Cold as ice, or she hadn’t any nerves between her hands and her head. Couldn’t tell she might want to knife Mitch Mitchell—

But he’d lay odds Mitch knew.

“Damn, damn. You got a rhythm in this thing.”

See those programs, see how that infodump selected for the human operator, and how it prioritized—that, that was a serious question. They’d had a problem like mat in TI, putting a human into the supercomputer neural-net, without letting it take over infoselection. This one sampled the human needs as well as the environment and it wasn’t doing all it could. The data behind it was fiatline. He pushed it, and it gave him the same input.

“You’re not supposed to critique it, Pollard. Just stick to the manuals.”

“Screw the—begging your pardon. But I worked on something like this. Staatentek program or independent?”

“Classified.”

He bit his lip. Didn’t raise the question of his clearance.

“Just a minute, Pollard.”

Just a minute was all right. He sat and stared at the screen that offered such interesting prospects: infodrop for the human decision and infocompression for the computer. Reality sampling against a chaos screen in a system Morrie Bird’s prize numbers man found achingly familiar, after a stint in TI’s securitized halls....

Screw supply systems modeling, this thing talked to him with a familiar voice.

This isn’t sim software, he thought. Main program’s elegant. This is real, isn’t it? Ignore the cheesy recorded randoms, son of a bitch—the system under this is a piece of work—

He said, to the air, “Staatentek didn’t do this, did they?”

No answer for a minute. Then a different voice; “Pollard. Leave the programs alone.”

“You can feel the randoms. I didn’t have to look for them.”

A pause. “That’s very good, Pollard. What would you suggest we do about it?”

Obvious answer. To the obvious question. The Belt. The numbers. The charts. The feeling you got for the system— the way the rocks moved. Real rocks, with the Well perturbing what the Sun ruled....

... Shakespeare; and Bird...

Ben, leave the damn charts—

“Pollard? What would you do?”

“I’m sure you have,” he said. “Use Sol.”

“Or Pell. Or Viking. You haven’t met Tripoint, Pollard. Would you like to see Tripoint? That one’s an excellent example....”

Balls hit and rebounded on the table. Ben walked around the other end, considering his next shot, gave a twitch of his shoulders, estimated an angle, and took careful aim with the cue.

“Mmmn,” Sal said. Ben was sure it was Sal’s voice behind him. Muscles were absolutely limp this evening. He was a little off his game—give or take a year’s hiatus. Dekker, the skuz, had had practice. Keep the run going. He didn’t want the cue in Dekker’s hands, not from what he’d seen.

Two in succession. It was rec hall, bar in the middle—a lot of UDC guys on Permission down there, drowning their sorrows. Fleet at this end, some of them too. And a scatter of marine guards—more khaki around the corridors than Ben personally found comfortable, thank you.

Real wringer of a sim this afternoon, he’d earned a beer, dammit, but they had him up again tomorrow, same with all of them.

Opened his big mouth and they’d reset the sim, all right.

Dots and more dots, in a space where the effin’ familiar sun didn’t exist...

Spooky situation. Wanted to feel it out and you were busy tracking damn dots.

Gentle shot. Balls rebounded. “Come on, come on—“

“Ouch,” Sal said.

Shit.

Dekker drew a breath. Armscomper wasn’t the opponent you’d choose in this game. Pilot versus armscomper got bets down, never mind he’d had practice Ben swore you didn’t have time to take at TI.

Hell if. Ben had learned it somewhere, he 1 Meek, maybe. And a Belter, didn’t show you any mercy. You damn sure didn’t want to let him get the cue back.

He saw his shot. Lined it up. Bets were down. Favor points. Military didn’t let you play with money. And nobody had any.

Click and drop. Sighs from half the spectators. Muted cheers from the rest.

Second shot. Ball dropped, balls rearranged the pattern. He was sore when he bent to survey the situation, but it was a good kind of soreness, kind you got from a hard run. Never had realized there was good pain and bad. He’d felt the other kind. Too damn much.

Click.

“Right on, Dek!”

Meg and Sal had bets on opposite sides.

He grinned, took aim.

Click. Perfect bank.

Sudden disturbance, then, in the ambient. Dekker felt it, looked up as everybody else was looking, at a handful of

UDC guys who’d showed up at the table. Marines were in motion, starting to move between.

Rob Childers. Kesslan and Deke. Chad’s crew. A marine said, “Let’s not have any trouble. Get on back there.”

Rob said, “Dek.”

He felt a sudden queasiness in the approach. A sense of confrontation. The marines weren’t pushing. They weren’t letting the UDC crew closer, either, and there was starting to be noise, other UDC guys moving in.

“Wait a minute,” Almarshad protested, thank God somebody on their side had the sense to say something, offer a hand to object to force; and he had to move, himself, had to do something in the split second.

He dropped the cue to his left hand, took a nonbelligerent stance.

“Dek,” Rob said and held out his hand.

Put him entirely on the spot. Marines didn’t move, didn’t know who was who or what was happening here, he scoped that—scoped the moment and the move and the necessity to do something before they all ended up in the brig.

“Rob,” he said, and went quietly past a confused marine and took the offered hand, looked Rob in the face and wondered if Rob was the one who’d tried to kill him, or if Rob knew who had. He took Kesslan’s hand, and Deke’s. The music system was grinding out a muted, bass-heavy beat, that had the silence all to itself.

“Too much gone on,” Rob said. “Both sides.”

He had to say something. He took that inspiration, said, “Yeah. Has,” and couldn’t find anything else to say.

“Let you get back to your game,” Rob said.

“Yeah. All right.” He stood there while the room sorted itself out again, Rob and the rest of them going back to their side. He never managed to say the right thing. He didn’t know what he could have said. He felt a hand on his arm—Meg, pulling him back to the table, while Franklin muttered, “Shit all.”

“They do it?” Mason asked him under his breath.

He gave it a desperate thought, trying to believe they were innocent. But he remembered getting hit, remembered the pod access, and couldn’t be analytical about the dark, and the pain of broken bones, and the toneless voice that said, in the back of his memory, Enjoy the ride, Dekker.

Tape going into the slot. The voice said, Let me—

Let me, what?

Wasn’t anybody but the pilot handled the mission tape.

Didn’t make sense.

He didn’t answer Mason. He got down and lined up his shot again, determined. Made it. There was a sigh of relief. He was relieved too. Was all he asked, for his pride’s sake. Didn’t want to show how rattled he was. He focused down and made a run of three, before a ball trembled on the verge of a drop. And didn’t.

“All right,” Ben said, out of a sigh and a stillness. Ben sounded less man satisfied. Everything seemed paler, colder, he didn’t know why. He stood by Meg and Sal, arms folded, and watched Ben make a straight run.

UDC MPs looked in on the situation. You could hear the music over the voices. When things were normal, you couldn’t.

He wanted a drink, but regs didn’t let him have one. He thought of desperate means to get one, but if they caught you at it, you were screwed. He didn’t want a session with Porey. Didn’t.

Bets got finalized. He’d bet himself, as happened, so had Ben; and Sal could collect. But something passed between Meg and Sal, and Meg took his arm and said Sal was taking a wait-ticket—

“You better get to bed,” Meg said, and he’d have paid off, he wouldn’t have minded, he was halfway numb at the moment—her change in arrangements made him think maybe he was better with Sal, who wouldn’t pry—Sal and he never had gotten into each other’s reasons for anything.

But Meg had set up what she evidently thought was a rescue, and he gave himself up and went off with her.

She was upbeat, cheerful, talking about the game, not a single question who that had been or why—must have gotten her information on her own, because Meg didn’t favor ignorance, depend on it: she got him to bed, was willing to go slow if he’d had the inclination: he didn’t; and wrapped herself around him after and snuggled down to keep him warm, about the time Ben and Sal came trooping through.

“Shhh,” Meg hissed, and they were immediately quiet, quiet coming and going to the bathroom—the front room had its drawbacks; but he was on the edge of falling asleep, suddenly exhausted.

Glad he’d made some sort of peace, he decided. Even if their move had put him on the spot and forced what he wasn’t ready for.

Likely they weren’t the ones who’d ambushed him. He hadn’t been sure of mat when he’d taken Rob’s hand; and even if he was somewhat sure now, he couldn’t come to peace with it, couldn’t forgive them, could he, if there was nothing to forgive in the first place, if they were innocent and it was somebody else he saw every day in the corridors, ate with in the mess hall. Maybe whoever had put him in hospital had been in the crowd getting a further kick out of his confusion.

He’d lost an argument or two when he was a kid—he’d lived through the chaff he had to take, he’d faced the guys again—they’d been two years older: he’d lived in fear and gotten hell beaten out of him a couple of times by the same guys before he’d made them believe they were going to take so much damage doing it they didn’t want to keep on his case—not the ideal outcome he’d have wanted, but at least he could believe he’d settled it, at least he’d made a point on them and at least they didn’t give him any more trouble.

But out there in front of everybody, they’d put him directly on the spot, damn them—yeah, he could have acted the touchy son of a bitch Ben said he was, told them go to hell and had the program in a mess and the lieutenant ready to kill him. He’d had an attack of responsibility, he decided finally. Mature judgment or something. His mother had sworn he’d never live that long.

But it didn’t solve his own problem. Just theirs. He was still walking around not knowing, still a target for another try, God only when, or on what provocation. In the meanwhile he knew those he’d trust with his life, and those he just didn’t know. In the meantime somebody was off scot free and probably laughing about it.

“You all right, cher?” Meg stirred beside him, massaged a shoulder. He realized the tension he had, then, probably as comfortable as a rock to be next to.

“Yeah.” He tried to relax. “Cold.”

Meg put a warm arm over his back. “Roll over, jeune fils. No questions. Do. We got sims in the morning. Big day. Relax.”

Couldn’t understand why she put up with him. Couldn’t understand why Ben did, except Sal was with Meg. He wished he could do better than he did, wished he could say they weren’t in a mess of his making. But it was. And they were. And Meg somehow didn’t care he was a fool.

The rec hall was quiet. It was a Question whether to acknowledge what had happened or ignore it; but the former, Graff decided—word having drifted his way via Reet Security via Sgt.-major Lynch. Probably word had drifted to Porey too and no orders had come. But it was Personnel’s business to take a tour, while the alterday galley staff was cleaning up. Music was still going. Most of the participants were back in barracks, hopefully.

“Quiet here?” he asked a marine on watch.

“Quiet, sir.”

“Any feeling of trouble?”

“No, sir. Not lately. Real quiet, sir.”

He made no approach toward the last few celebrants—a few UDC, a few Fleet personnel, a little the worse for drink, at opposite ends of the hall. He wasn’t there on a disciplinary. But he meant to be seen. His being there said command levels had heard, command levels were aware.

Dekker hadn’t blown it, by all he’d heard. He didn’t know where the idea had started. He didn’t know that it had done any good, but at least it had done no demonstrable harm.

Someone walked in at his back, walked up beside him.

“Tables still standing,” Villy said.

“Noted that.”

“Hope it lasts,” Villy said. “Difficult time.”

Villy had never said anything about the change in command. Like having your ship taken out of your hands, Graff thought, like watching it happen on, Villy had said, the last big project he’d ever work on.

What did you say? What, in the gulf between his reality and Villy’s, did one find to say?

“Good they did that,” he said. “I hope it takes.”