Vanguard

Chapter 10

“How’s it look?” Mele asked, leaning to gaze at some of the displays wrapped in front of Ninja’s desk.

“Very nice,” Ninja said, her eyes on the displays as her hands and fingers moved around controls and inputs. “You didn’t plant the listening array perfectly, but pretty close.”

“It wasn’t under ideal conditions,” Mele said dryly.

“You got to crawl around in the mud and get dirt in your teeth, Marine,” Ninja said. “I bet you loved it. Sorry there aren’t any snakes to eat on this planet.”

“Yeah, it’s that far short of paradise,” Mele agreed.

“Ah, lookee here,” Ninja said. “I recognize that. And hit with this and… yeah. I’ll be able to get in. What exactly are you going to need me to do?”

Mele pondered the question for a moment, thinking back to Gunny Chopra again. “Are you a scientist or an engineer?”

Ninja grinned. “I am a sorcerer. High priestess of the Temple of Lovelace. Practitioner of the High Code and Breaker of Firewalls. And also Grand Deceiver of the SysAdmins.”

“In that case,” Mele said, laughing, “I need to be able to be invisible to Scatha’s sensors, including their battle armor internals.”

“Uh-huh. What else?”

Mele’s laughter faded as she looked incredulously at Ninja. “I need their full security layout, patrol schedules, entry codes, and lock overrides.”

“Yeah, of course.” Ninja nodded and sat back, smiling at Mele. “When do you need it, Marine?”

“Whenever you can get it, Sorcerer. You know what my timeline is.”

“Yeah,” Ninja repeated. “So you also need their planned date for finishing work on the antiorbital system and activating it, and updates on whether they are keeping to schedule, right?”

“Right.” Mele leaned against the wall, crossing her arms and grinning at Ninja. “Where have you been all my life?”

Ninja looked upward and sighed. “Trying to figure out how to hack the heart of Lieutenant Rob Geary. The rest of this stuff is easy by comparison.”

“Maybe I can help nudge him your way,” Mele said. “Something subtle like a kick in the butt. That usually gets a guy’s attention.”

“Thanks for the Marine romance tip, but I’d rather you focused on not getting killed. Even if I give you everything you want and need, this is still going to be dangerous as hell, right?”

Mele weighed possible responses, finally deciding on the simplest one. “Right.”

She had been called on the carpet enough during her time in Franklin’s Marines that Mele wasn’t too intimidated to be standing before the three council members who made up Glenlyon’s Defense Subcouncil. Not that she liked the experience.

It helped that Leigh Camagan was the chair of the subcouncil. Mele had quickly sized up Camagan as someone you played straight with because if you did, she would return the favor. Council Member Kim was a usually reliable ally except that he had exaggerated ideas of his own ability to understand real-world military operations. Council Member Odom, on the other hand, had been put on the subcouncil to represent the dovish sentiments in the colony, which meant he spent most of his time trying to second-guess, undermine, and block Mele. Not that that was entirely a bad thing. She had learned the importance of having oversight that made her question her own assumptions.

“When do you intend doing something about Scatha’s intrusion on this planet?” Kim demanded. “They’ve almost finished work on setting up their antiorbital defense system! What are you waiting for?”

Mele spoke with calm certainty. “Aside from the need to get in as much training as possible and make the necessary preparations, I’m planning on hitting them the night after they make that system operational. That’s what I’m waiting for.”

Kim stared in wordless amazement. Odom gave Mele a suspicious look. Leigh Camagan rested her chin on the palm of one hand. “Why?” she asked.

Trust Camagan to ask for an explanation before making up her mind. Mele gestured in the general direction of Scatha’s encampment. “Three reasons. First, I don’t want to alert them that we’re a danger. They’ve been sitting on this planet for a few weeks, and we haven’t done anything except mouth at them.”

“We have attempted to negotiate their departure and expressed our intentions to not accept their illegal actions,” Odom corrected in a severe tone.

“Yes, sir,” Mele said. “The point is, right now, those ground apes from Scatha are thinking we’re all talk and no trouble. They’ve relaxed their guard. I was able to check them out from ground level when planting our surveillance pickups, and those apes are not staying sharp.

“Second, when they get that antiorbital cannon online, they’re going to relax even more because they’re going to feel really safe with that big gun working. They’ll celebrate, they’ll feel protected by the big gun, and they’ll take it a little easier. That’ll be the best time to strike.”

Mele smiled, but this time it was a hard smile, with little humor to it. “And, third, because after feeling so safe and relaxed, having that system destroyed right under their noses is going to hit them all the harder. They’re going to go from overconfident to extra-spooked, and once we have them scared, we can keep pushing with smaller moves that will wear away their morale and set them up to fold without a tough fight. If we have enough time for that. It’s just like in a one-on-one fight. If you get the other guy scared, off-balance, then you can keep them that way, and they’ll be that much easier to beat.”

“I see.” Leigh Camagan nodded toward each of her fellow members. “That sounds like excellent reasoning.”

“Where did an enlisted Marine pick up that kind of thinking?” Odom demanded.

Mele smiled at him even though she wanted to make a very rude gesture in reply. Alas, part of being in command meant that she couldn’t give in to that kind of temptation anymore. “Listening to my officers talk tactics and strategy. And reading. There’s this guy named Sun Tzu. Real old Old Earth. Part of what he talks about is beating the enemy before you start fighting by laying the right groundwork.”

“That’s good,” Kim said. Having seen Odom’s hostility, he was throwing himself fully into support of Mele. “That’s very good.”

“She’s working from theory,” Odom said.

“She is trying to achieve victory by causing as few deaths among the enemy as possible,” Leigh Camagan said. “That is your intention, is it not?” she asked Mele.

“Yes, it is,” Mele confirmed. “In particular, to avoid any casualties at all among the civilians Scatha brought.”

“That is surely what we want, isn’t it?” Leigh Camagan asked Odom.

Odom hesitated, then nodded with a sour expression. “Yes.”

“Then, having heard Major Darcy’s explanation of her strategy, I move that we endorse it.”

Mele ran the last sentence through her head again, wondering if she had heard right. No. She must have misheard part of it.

“I’m still concerned,” Odom said. “We’ve seen the data our pickups are gathering. You say that Scatha’s soldiers are complacent,” he told Mele, “yet our pickups are detecting usually two or three weapon discharges a night by sentries.”

Mele nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I know they’re slacking off,” she explained. “Sentries and patrols get bored if nothing happens, and when they get bored, there’s a real strong temptation to let off a shot just for fun. Usually, you claim that you saw something move and thought it might be danger. Back on Franklin, we called popping off a shot like that for fun huntin’ wabbits.”

“I’ve heard the expression,” Kim said. “But that was from a former soldier from Brahma, who also emphasized it was not rabbit but wabbit. What is a wabbit?”

“I don’t know,” Mele said. “Maybe the saying originated on Earth, and they have wabbits there, so that’s why everybody uses it. The thing is, a tight outfit, one that’s well disciplined, doesn’t tolerate that. Any sentry who shoots at wabbits gets hammered.” She didn’t bother adding that she knew that from personal experience. “So it doesn’t happen very often. The fact that Scatha’s grunts are popping off shots two or three times a night every night means they’re not being hauled up short for it, which means their leadership is sloppy, which is good for us.”

“Are you worried about being mistaken for a wabbit by those sentries?” Leigh Camagan asked.

“Ninja is working on our being able to break into their net and substitute our own data for whatever the sensors really see,” Mele said. “She’s confident she can do that, and when that happens, we can look like whatever we want to look like to the sensors, or we’ll be invisible to anyone who doesn’t actually see us with unaided eyes.”

“Won’t they do that?” Odom asked, frowning. “Look around with their own eyes?”

“No, sir. The sloppier an outfit is, the more they depend exclusively on their sensors. And these guys are sloppy. I’m betting my life on it. Not figuratively. Literally.”

Odom grimaced. “I don’t want to minimize that. You are running serious risks. I’d prefer that we also don’t suffer any losses.”

He meant it, Mele realized. She nodded respectfully to him. “Thank you, sir. I assure you that I am highly motivated to come back from this mission alive and in one piece.”

“She’s clearly thought this out,” Kim said. “I move that we endorse Major Darcy’s actions and plans.”

There it was again. No doubt this time.

After a few seconds, Odom reluctantly nodded in agreement.

After the other two had left, Mele stopped Leigh Camagan. “Major Darcy? Two of you called me major.”

“Yes. You’ve been promoted,” Leigh Camagan said matter-of-factly.

“When did that happen?”

“This morning.”

“Thank you for informing me of that,” Mele said. “I’ve heard of sergeant-majors, but I never heard of anyone being promoted direct from sergeant to major,” Mele said.

“These are exceptional circumstances. Don’t you think you can handle it?”

“One of these days, you’re going to ask me that, and I’m going to say no, I can’t,” Mele threatened.

“I don’t think so,” Leigh Camagan said, smiling slightly. “I make a habit of finding out what people are really like, so I know how to deal with them, and I try to be certain of my own motives and thoughts as well. ‘Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.’”

It was Mele’s turn to stare in surprise. “You’ve read Sun Tzu?”

“Of course. War is an extension of politics, as Clausewitz said.”

“I haven’t read that Clausewitz. Should I?”

“When you have the time,” Leigh Camagan said. “To be honest, you seem to already know a lot of what he says. You were bored a lot as an enlisted Marine for Franklin, weren’t you? That’s why you got in trouble from time to time.”

“There’s truth to that,” Mele admitted.

“I have good news for you. You won’t have to worry about getting into trouble anymore because you are not going to have any opportunities in the future to be bored, Major Darcy.” Leigh Camagan smiled at her, then left.

Mele stared after her, wondering what her last outfit would think if they heard that she was now a major. There had been one sergeant that she would absolutely love to see right now. And that snooty lieutenant.

And another sergeant who would shake her head, and tell Mele, “Darcy, you stupid boot, I always told you to stop screwing around and you’d make rank in a flash. It’s about time you listened.”

As she stepped outside on her way back to the grandly named Glenlyon Ground Forces Training Camp, Mele paused to look up. People did that a lot these days, she realized. Looking up to where they had come from or where they were going or where people they knew were. Had Lochan Nakamura gone on to Kosatka? Was he still with that Carmen, who had seemed to have had her share of hidden secrets? Mele wished he could know she had made major. But since that was unlikely to happen, she hoped Lochan was all right. Kosatka was supposed to be a quiet place, after all.

Someone had gone to the trouble of making Kosatka’s second city, Drava, different in architectural style from the original city. Not hugely different, but with enough distinctive features to give it a feel of individuality. Lochan liked that. The people running Kosatka might have made some missteps, but they clearly were trying to do things right. Even more than the first city, Drava felt only half-occupied, having been overbuilt to accommodate the new immigrants coming in with every ship that arrived.

He took another look at Carmen as their vehicle rolled through streets with light traffic. She had been up and down all day, one moment seemingly elated by the progress they had made and the next moment gloomy and looking around as if expecting some sort of trouble. During the brief moments when he had felt safe to speak candidly with her and asked whether she was worried about anything, Carmen had only shaken her head, muttered “ghosts,” and left it at that.

The meeting with representatives from Drava was to take place in a newly completed building. “No negative historical associations possible,” First Minister Hofer had commented wryly to Lochan and Carmen. “As short as our history has been, places are already acquiring good and bad connotations. But this is completely neutral ground.”

Entry was through broad doors into an expansive and mostly empty reception area. The new lift tubes were being balky, so the small group walked up two flights of stairs to the second story. Besides Lochan, there was Carmen Ochoa, First Minister Hofer, House Leader Ottone, Safety Coordinator Sarkozy, and a single guard. Lochan noticed that as they walked, the Safety Coordinator always positioned herself in the group so that she could keep an eye on Carmen.

After a short walk down a hallway with finished but bare walls, Lochan brought up the rear as the small group entered a suite on the second floor. “We need to discuss a few internal matters while waiting for the representatives from Drava,” First Minister Hofer told Lochan and Carmen. “I hope you won’t mind waiting in the outer room.”

“No problem,” Lochan assured him.

The First Minister, House Leader Ottone, and Safety Coordinator Sarkozy entered the inner room. As the door closed behind them, Lochan could hear the Safety Coordinator beginning to speak forcefully, but he didn’t catch any words.

The guard with them took up position outside the inner door, ostentatiously blocking access but giving Lochan and Carmen a slightly apologetic look. Lochan suspected he was following orders from Safety Coordinator Sarkozy.

Lochan looked around the outer room, a rectangle maybe seven meters long and about half that wide, the doorway to the hall set in the center of one long wall and the door to the inner room set directly opposite it. One of the shorter walls had a big window set in it, but curtains veiled any view of the outside. Like the hallway, the outer room lacked any pictures or displays. If he hadn’t known he was on Kosatka, Lochan thought, he could be back on Franklin, or even on Earth.

“It’s funny,” he commented to Carmen. “We go so far from Old Earth, we build something totally new on a totally new world, and from the inside, it looks like it could have been built anywhere at any time in the last few centuries.”

She started to reply, stopped with a worried/puzzled expression, turned toward the outer doorway, then leapt toward Lochan.

He staggered back as she shoved him, catching a glimpse of someone in the doorway, a weapon aimed in at them.

“Alert!” the guard at the inner door shouted, clawing at the shocker holstered under his coat. “Lock the—”

The guard jerked three times and fell back against the door he had been guarding, his eyes open in a final stare at the man who had killed him. The sound of the shots had been muffled but was still clear in the otherwise quiet building.

That man was already inside the room and spinning to target Lochan and Carmen. Frozen in surprise, Lochan got only a blurred glimpse of a wiry build, a balding head, and the muzzle of the weapon coming around to aim.

In the vids, this was where the bad guy would stop to give a speech, then watch without reacting as the good guys jumped into action.

But the killer’s only hesitation came as he took a moment to decide which of them to kill first.

Lochan would have died in the seconds he needed to figure out how to react. But Carmen had launched herself into the assassin the instant she finished pushing Lochan aside, taking advantage of the killer’s brief instant of indecision.

Lochan had seen Mele fight, seen the sure, practiced blows with which she disabled a threat. Carmen didn’t fight that way.

Carmen fought dirty.

Lochan didn’t catch everything she did as Carmen hit their attacker, but he saw a thumb driven into an eye and a knee go into a groin. Carmen and the killer fell to the floor, her teeth closing on the wrist holding a weapon. The killer rolled free, shouting in pain, his weapon now in Carmen’s hand.

In the vids, this was where the good guy would stop and tell the bad guy to surrender.

The moment Carmen lined up the pistol, she fired, hitting the attacker. Taking only a second to aim better, she fired again, knocking him down for good.

Lochan was still grappling with what had happened when Carmen bent down, retrieved the shocker the guard had been trying to draw, and tossed it to Lochan. “I heard at least one more out there,” she told him. “Get over on that side of the door. Can you use that?”

He looked down at the weapon, his head and guts swirling with adrenaline and emotion, then back at Carmen Ochoa. “I’ve never fired a weapon,” Lochan said as he picked it up.

“You’re a fast learner, aren’t you?” Carmen had closed in on herself, no feelings visible in her expression. The only sign of distress in her was the tightness with which she was gripping the weapon taken from the attacker.

“What do they want?” Lochan asked as he knelt by the opposite side of the door from Carmen, his own weapon held awkwardly. It only now occurred to him that he had been standing between the doorway and the guard. If Carmen had not shoved him out of the way, the killer’s bullets would have hit Lochan first.

“They want to kill any chance of peaceful resolution,” Carmen said, her voice a monotone. “Commit another atrocity and cause a bigger crackdown. Feed a spiral of violence with innocent victims. It’s an old, old strategy.”

A voice called from the other side of the inner door. “Who’s out there?”

“Ochoa and Nakamura,” she replied. “Your guard is dead. There’s at least one more attacker in the hall. We’re holding the outer door. Keep yours closed in case they get past us.”

After a long pause, the voice came again. Lochan recognized it as that of Safety Coordinator Sarkozy. “I owe you an apology, Citizen Ochoa.”

“I’ll accept it when we have the chance,” Carmen replied.

She swung her gaze across Lochan for a moment, then focused once more on the doorway.

Lochan shivered at what he had seen in her eyes. Growing up on Mars. That was what it had meant. That’s what being a Red meant. He finally understood that when Carmen had spoken of fighting for survival, of fighting her way off Mars, she hadn’t been speaking metaphorically.

“Hey,” another woman’s voice called from the hallway. “You in there. You kill Graf?”

“Yeah,” Carmen replied, her voice taking on a different accent. “He dead.”

“You pretty good. Graf was bloody Red. You Hellas gang?”

“Shandakar. No gang,” Carmen answered, her weapon aimed steadily at the doorway.

“Shanda? Ha! Graf be really mad if he knew a wimp Shanda kill him.”

Carmen looked about quickly, then gestured urgently to Lochan to continue covering the doorway with his weapon. She faded back, moving as silently as possible, until she was against the outer wall in the corner next to the window.

“Hey, wimp Shanda,” the woman in the hallway outside called. “You run, we let you go. Bonus life. Deal?”

Lochan looked at Carmen, who didn’t answer this time. Instead, she shook her head angrily and indicated he should keep his attention focused on the doorway.

“Still there, Shanda? Deal offer expire real soon.”

The window shattered, curtains blowing inward as a man broke through, rolling up to aim at the inside of the doorway. Before he could fire, Carmen fired two shots into him from her position behind him next to the wall. The man twisted partway, staggered, and fell, his weapon dropping from his limp hand.

Distracted by the activity at the window, Lochan nearly missed the woman dodging through the doorway. He fired without aiming, the pop of the shocker startling him.

More by luck than design, the shocker’s charge grazed the spine of the woman. She fell, twitching, her lips drawn back as she tried to bring up her weapon.

Lochan extended his arm, aimed as the shocker recharged, and fired a second time. That shot hit her full on.

Carmen took long enough to check on the man she had just shot, then raced back to Lochan and looked over his victim. For a moment, he wondered if she would shoot the unconscious attacker, but Carmen shuddered and passed one hand across her eyes before returning attention to the doorway.

“Citizen Ochoa,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy called from the inner room. “Our response team is entering the building.”

“Understand,” Carmen called back. “I need an announcement when they get close. I don’t know if there are any more killers out there.”

“They’re coming up to the second floor now. The officer in charge is Sergeant Dominic Desjani.”

Lochan heard faint noises in the hallway and tensed again.

“In the room,” a clear voice called, “this is Sergeant Desjani, Public Safety Rapid Response Team. Identify yourselves.”

“Carmen Ochoa,” she called back.

“Lochan Nakamura,” he called as well, reassured that Carmen trusted whoever was out there this time.

“Place any weapons you have on the ground,” Sergeant Desjani’s voice ordered. “Then stand up, your open hands clearly visible. Is there anyone else inside?”

Lochan put his shocker down and got to his feet as Carmen answered.

“Four,” Carmen said. “All down. Two dead, one maybe, one unconscious.”

“Understand.” A small flying drone swung into sight and entered the room, panning around to view everything within. “Remain standing. Don’t move. We are coming in now.”

Lochan’s feelings of relief were replaced by renewed fear as figures wearing protective gear and carrying weapons swept into the room, some of the weapons pausing to stay directed at him. Most were nonlethal shockers, but Lochan thought one or two of the weapons might be something more dangerous.

After a few seconds of knife-edged tension, the man who must be Sergeant Desjani edged toward the inner door. “Commander? The outer room is secure.”

“Good.” The Safety Coordinator opened the door, looking relieved. Behind her, Lochan caught glimpses of the drawn faces of First Minister Hofer and House Leader Ottone.

Sergeant Desjani called out another command as he removed a protective face mask. “Stand down. Casualty status?”

“She was right,” one of the other officers reported. “Officer Yeltzin is dead. That one is also dead. Multiple slugs. This one is almost dead. Same cause. I’ve called the EMTs up here for him. The third subject is out, shocker burns visible.”

Lochan saw the sergeant look from the slug thrower at Carmen’s feet to the shocker at his, then raise his eyes to study both of them. “These two are okay?” he asked Safety Coordinator Sarkozy.

“More than okay,” Sarkozy replied, coming into the outer room and looking down morosely at the fallen guard.

“He was shot with this,” Carmen said, toeing the weapon at her feet. “The same weapon that killed his killer. He died defending you.”

“His memory will be honored. I’m sure you might have died as well,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy said. “I overheard a little of the conversation out here. You know where they came from?”

Carmen sighed. “I don’t know who sent them here, but I know where they came from originally. Mars. All three are Reds. You can question the woman when she comes to, and she might be open to a deal to tell you what she knows. She sounded like a Vall-Mar. Tough. Threaten her, and she won’t say a word, but Vall-Mars are usually willing to negotiate.”

Safety Coordinator Sarkozy eyed Carmen, nodding in confirmation of earlier suspicions. “You know more about Mars than you let on. I thought so, but I also thought wrong. Kosatka owes you a lot.” She extended her hand. “I have your back from this day on. Sergeant, Citizen Ochoa and Citizen Nakamura are to be given every trust and courtesy.”

After Carmen Ochoa had shaken hands with Sarkozy, she walked over to where Lochan stood and gazed at him, worry in her eyes.

He knew what she was worried about. “It’s okay.”

“Is it? You just saw me. Really saw me.”

“I saw part of you,” Lochan said. “How did you know that guy would come through the window?”

“It’s an old trick,” Carmen said, her head lowered, looking depressed. “The one in the hallway talking to me to keep my attention focused on her and to cover any sound the other guy made getting into position. Lochan—”

“I said it’s okay.” He gave her his best sympathetic look. “It must be hard to live with sometimes.”

“There are a lot of memories that are hard to live with,” Carmen agreed. “I just picked up a couple more.”

“I’m a lot more impressed with you now,” Lochan said, meaning every word of it. “To come out of that and be who you are. That’s amazing.”

She finally looked at him again, skeptical. “You’re impressed?”

“I’d be dead if not for you,” he pointed out.

“I guess.”

“I just realized something else,” Lochan added. “Ever since I headed down, I’m attracting the attention of young women who not only aren’t interested in me physically, they also keep putting weapons in my hand and telling me to use them.”

“You must be making bad choices,” Carmen said, smiling slightly.

“I think when it comes to people who are good to have around when things go bad, I’m making really good choices,” Lochan said. He studied her, concerned. “You’re not all right, are you?”

She shook her head.

“What can I do?”

“I may get seriously drunk tonight. If I do, I could use someone to keep an eye on me and get me back to my room.”

“Deal,” Lochan said.

“Most of those from Mars are like me,” Carmen said in a rush. “Just trying to be decent people and leave the ugliness behind. But others look at us and see only Reds like those killers. And there are always enough Reds like that to feed the fears and the rumors and the anger.”

Lochan was trying to come up with an answer when the sergeant joined them.

“Citizens,” he said, looking them over again, “do you require any assistance?”

“We’re fine,” Lochan said.

“No injuries?”

Lochan looked to Carmen, who shrugged as she answered. “Just a few scratches and bruises. I’ll be all right.”

“You should let one of the EMTs check you,” the sergeant suggested. “You took that guy down by yourself?”

“Yes,” Carmen said, sounding reluctant to admit it.

“We’re in your debt. If you need anything, please let us know. You can call me personally,” the sergeant said, passing both Carmen and Lochan his contact information but looking at Carmen as he said it.

“It looks like you have another admirer,” Lochan said to Carmen as the sergeant rejoined the other safety officers.

“That would be funny, wouldn’t it?” she replied, gazing after the sergeant. “A Red and a cop. Not too likely, though.”

To no one’s surprise, the meeting with the representatives from Drava was postponed until the next day. But First Minister Hofer took pains to emphasize in a public statement that the meeting would go forward. “The three who killed a brave public safety officer and would have killed more except for the valiant actions of two individuals from Old Earth were not from Drava,” he announced. “They were agents of an outside power, planning to place the blame for their actions on the people of Drava. We all know that attempt could not have succeeded because we are all one on Kosatka. I want to reassure the people of Drava that we will work to address any concerns they have, and that I personally still feel myself as safe here as I do back in my own home.”

That night, Lochan sat with her while Carmen drank. She had decided to have a bottle sent up rather than be in a public place like a bar. After a while and after enough drinks, Carmen started talking in a low voice, sharing memories and events in the manner of someone unearthing things they had once hoped to keep buried forever. Lochan listened, saying nothing but an occasional vague sound to let her know he was listening. These weren’t things meant for him to comment on, he knew, and he didn’t feel qualified to judge or talk about such matters anyway. Carmen needed to talk, needed to share some of the burden she carried inside, and so he listened and took on a little of that.

He wondered what had changed, that she was willing to share such things. Perhaps it was that they had faced this last situation as a team. He had become, in a small way, someone who had shared an ugly situation. Someone who might understand choices driven by necessity.

Eventually, the bottle nearly empty, Carmen’s voice drifted off to a murmur, and she laid her head on the table. Lochan got her up and into bed, making sure she was safe before going to his own room.

Once there, tired as he was, Lochan sat for a long time gazing at nothing. He had plenty of memories from his earlier life as well, not all of them pleasant, but nothing as bad as what Carmen Ochoa had endured. It had never before occurred to him how lucky he had been to be born and raised on Franklin. Not that Franklin was perfect. Like any other home of humanity, it had its better parts and its worse parts. But nowhere in Franklin’s star system was there anything like the hellhole that Mars had become.

But that could happen out here, he realized. Even as apparently tranquil a place as Kosatka could be warped by internal and external pressures and mistakes, heading down that long road paved with good intentions that too often led to the same place where Mars was stuck. Stars like Apulu were already seeing what they could get away with, someone’s warship had bombarded Lares for no apparent reason, and Lochan couldn’t shake the memory of those corporate colonies that had gone far, far out to stars distant from anyone who could interfere with them. What sort of places would they become, especially if they joined together? Carmen Ochoa had good cause for her worries.

“I’ve been looking for somewhere,” Lochan said out loud, speaking either to himself or to the planet as a whole or maybe to something bigger than that. He wasn’t sure which. “Why not here? And if I’m going to fail again, why not fail trying to do something big? Something important? More important than me, anyway. Something that might prevent more kids from having to grow up like Carmen did, or like those three killers did. Something that might save lives.”

Lochan sighed, looking down at the hand that had held the shocker. “I’m not a warrior who can carry weapons. Both times I’ve held one, it’s felt… alien. Wrong for me. But people can fight in other ways, using other weapons. I’m going to fight for Kosatka. And maybe help Kosatka fight for others.”

There was no one in the room to answer, at least no one he could see or any answer he could hear. But he finally went to bed, feeling more at peace than at any time he could remember.

Everything that Rob Geary had ever heard about Kosatka, which admittedly wasn’t that much, indicated that it was a peaceful star system, with a colony planted several years earlier and growing at a rapid pace as humanity spread across Kosatka’s primary world just as it was spreading through neighboring stars.

Which was why Rob Geary wasn’t surprised when Squall left jump space and encountered no one guarding the spot. Ships serving as sentries at jump points happened in the Old Colonies, usually using spacecraft whose primary mission was customs enforcement rather than war, but it wasn’t something that star systems diverted resources to in the new colonies.

The peaceful façade of Kosatka crumbled as soon they picked up a local newscast. Rob watched the reports in disbelief, seeing the images of battered Lares, the unmistakable craters from orbital bombardment pocking the surface, the craters surrounded by tangled wreckage that had once been a fast-rising new city for a new colony.

“Who did that?” Danielle Martel asked, sounding as shocked as Rob. “That ship they’re showing is not one of the warships that Scatha has. And Lares is jumps away from Scatha.”

“This is old news here,” Rob said. “Kosatka heard about this weeks ago. These reports are just rehashing the original information and speculating.”

“What do we do?” Drake Porter asked. “Shouldn’t we go back to Glenlyon right away? What if that ship shows up at our star system?”

Rob felt the fear racing through his crew and knew he had to bring it to a halt. “We have a job here that is about protecting Glenlyon,” he said. “We need to do that job. We need to deliver our message and see if we can get a response from Kosatka. Then we will return to Glenlyon and defend it from threats like that. Drake, am I ready to transmit to the primary world? We’d better let them know right away who we are.”

That world was, Rob saw, currently over four light hours distant. “Right away” meant Kosatka wouldn’t hear his message for four hours, but since they also wouldn’t see the arrival of Squall for that same period of time, a quick message should reassure Kosatka about Squall’s intentions.

“Uh, just a sec. Yeah. You’re ready.”

Still rattled by the news of what had happened at Lares, Rob composed himself, trying to look both professional and nonthreatening. “This is Lieutenant Robert Geary of the Glenlyon warship Squall. We are here on a peaceful mission to request Kosatka’s assistance. I repeat, we pose no threat to the people of Kosatka. We urgently request communications with your government, so that I can transmit to them a plea for help from the government of Glenlyon.”

He was about to end the transmission when Rob remembered something from the news reports about Lares, about the mystery warship approaching their planet. “To ensure that our peaceful intent is clear, Squall will not proceed any closer to your worlds but will remain in the vicinity of this jump point. Geary, out.”

“What are we going to do while we wait?” Drake asked.

Rob slumped back, knowing that it would be at least eight hours before he heard anything in reply from Kosatka. “We’re going to stay here and wait, just like I said.”

After doing what little else could be done, Rob went to his stateroom. He didn’t know what local time was at the city on the planet where he had sent his message, but Squall had arrived late in the day for the ship.

He couldn’t shake the memories of those awful images from Lares. Rob wondered if he would be able to sleep.

Rob was awakened by an insistent beeping from the comm panel next to his bunk. “Yeah?” He squinted at the time on the ship—0300. Of course. Emergencies always happened at an hour like that.

“We’ve received some messages from Kosatka,” Drake reported. “Sorry. You told me to wake you up when any came in.”

“Yeah,” Rob repeated, trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain. “Forward them to here, okay?”

“You got it.”

Drake’s face vanished, replaced by that of a very hard-faced man speaking in very hard tones. “Unknown warship, this is Kosatka. You are forbidden to proceed in-system. Any attempt to approach our worlds will be regarded as a hostile act. Identify yourself immediately!”

It wasn’t the nicest greeting that Rob had ever received, but understandable given the circumstances.

He called up the second message, sent soon after the first. This time the man looked slightly less rigid, his voice not quite as threatening. “Lieutenant Geary on the Glenlyon warship Squall, this is Kosatka. I have forwarded your message to the First Minister’s office. Kosatka appreciates your willingness to remain near the jump point and hopes that you will continue to abide by that promise.”

Rob rubbed his face, grimaced, and called up the latest information that Squall’s sensors had been able to pick up since arriving at Kosatka.

There was still no sign of any other warship in this star system. No other defenses had been identified. Either Kosatka had done an amazing job of concealing all of its warships and other weaponry, or the threats he had just received had been bluffs.

Not that he was interested in calling those bluffs. Gaining the cooperation of Kosatka wouldn’t happen if he played games with their very real fears stoked by what had happened at Lares.

“Lieutenant?” Drake Porter again, looking apologetic. “The guys standing watch on the weapons want to know if they can stand down from that.”

Rob almost said yes because he knew from personal experience how tedious combat watches in a nonthreat environment could be.

But he hesitated before giving that order. Squall was a warship. And she was on a combat mission. And they were close to a jump point, which was just about the only kind of place within space where a spaceship could be surprised by a sudden new arrival. “No. Drake, I understand it’s a pain, but we are in combat status. We have to stay ready if anything shows up. And if anybody complains, I’ll remind them that I’m standing those watches, too.”

Another reply showed up at 0500 ship time. The speaker this time was a wary-looking woman. “I am Safety Coordinator Sarkozy speaking for Kosatka. Please send your message in reply to this. We want to know more about what is happening at Glenlyon. I have to caution you that Kosatka’s resources are currently extremely limited, so our ability to assist you may also be very restricted. Out.”

Rob, giving up on getting any more sleep, especially since he was due for a bridge watch at 0600, tabbed reply and attached the message the council of Glenlyon had put together. He paused before hitting SEND, took a few moments to make himself look presentable, then added something to the reply. “This is Lieutenant Geary. Thank you for your willingness to hear the message from the government of Glenlyon. I look forward to your reply. I was asked to notify two individuals who may be in Kosatka of our problems in the hopes that they might offer assistance. Those two are… Lochan Nakamura and Carmen Ochoa. Thank you again. Out.”

He stood up, yawning, made sure his improvised uniform looked right, and headed for the bridge. The short passageway to the bridge from his stateroom seemed even quieter than usual.

He was almost there when the rapid bong of the general quarters alarm shattered the silence.