Angles of Attack (19 page)

“Fomalhaut,” Agent Green says. “Yeah, I read the logs. That’s why you’re sitting here.”

He consults his data pad again. I suppress the sudden urge to rip it out of his hands and cram it down his throat. A hundred of our ships gone, millions dead on Mars, tens of thousands waiting for news on New Svalbard. Why are we wasting time with this right now?

“You took part in a bona fide mutiny on New Svalbard. You disobeyed direct orders from the task force commander and shot it out with fellow troops. I’m still sifting through the details, but from where I’m sitting, I’ve already tallied up twenty-five years in Leavenworth, Staff Sergeant Grayson.”

“They were illegal orders,” I say.

“Not your call to make. You’re an E-6. You’re a combat grunt, not a JAG officer.”

“That was my call to make,” I say. “First thing you learn in NCO school is to never give an order that you know won’t be followed. Second thing you learn is that you have the right to refuse illegal orders. The task force commander had no right to use us to claim civilian assets by force.”

“Be sure to bring that up at your court-martial,” Major Carter says.

“I will,” I say. “And I’ll also bring up how you people exiled two battalions of Earthside grunts on a colony with almost no resources, and then turned off the FTL network.”

Agent Green gives me his brief, thin-lipped smile again. “Two battalions,” he says, aping my tone of voice. “Five thousand troops.”

“And the colonists.”

“And the colonists,” he replies. “How many people live on that frozen ball of shit again?”

“Ten, fifteen thousand,” Major Carter supplies. “It’s a pretty new colony. Ten years tops.”

“Twenty thousand people at the most, then.” Agent Green sighs. “A quarter of them insubordinate rabble-rousers who thought their oath of service was more of a loose suggestion.”

“And three-quarters of them civilians.”

Agent Green sighs again and puts his data pad onto the table in front of him. “Do you know how many civilians have died on Lanky-invaded colonies, Sergeant?”

“I have a rough idea,” I say. “I’ve done four years of combat drops. Seen an awful lot of dead bodies.”

“Eight hundred fifty thousand,” Agent Green says. “Give or take a few ten thousand. And that count was from two months ago. Mars blew it all to hell. Call it twenty, twenty-one million now. But you know what? That number is a weak piss in a lake compared to the number of people that are going to die when the Lankies show up in Earth orbit.”

I look at the Earth bureaucrat with his neat suit underneath the borrowed overalls, with that badge in his pocket and the data pad in front of him, acting like any of this still matters.

“We have a few weeks,” I say. “Maybe a few months. There are a dozen Lanky ships patrolling between Mars and the asteroid belt. When they’re done settling Mars, they’re going to head this way. Way things stand, I don’t think Leavenworth is going to be a problem for me.”

“Well, aren’t you just the toughest guy on the block,” Agent Green says. “I am, of course, duly awed. Where is your berth, Staff Sergeant?”

“I can’t seem to recall just now. Maybe I’ll remember by the time you get me some JAG counsel in here. I don’t think I should be saying anything else right now.”

Agent Green shakes his head, a mildly irritated look on his face. Then he picks up his data pad again and taps the screen.

“Have the master-at-arms find and unlock Staff Sergeant Grayson’s berth. Secure the data module from his armor and report back to the docking collar as soon as complete. And secure the SRA prisoner.”

“He’s not a POW,” I interject. “He’s the liaison for the Alliance task force we joined up with in Fomalhaut. I thought you debriefed the skipper?”

“And I thought you were done talking without JAG counsel,” Agent Green says.

“We need the Russian to get back through the Alliance node for Fomalhaut,” I say. “He has the access code.”

“This ship is going precisely nowhere right now, Sergeant. Once we have untangled the personnel situation,
Indianapolis
is going to join the defense of Earth. You may have noticed that we’re down a few ships right now.”

“If we don’t go back to Fomalhaut, thirty thousand people are going to die,” I say. “They’re waiting for us to get back and tell them the way home. It’s what we came back for. We’re the scouting mission for a twenty-ship task force. They can’t make the transition blind without our intel. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“If you go back to Fomalhaut, billions are going to die,” Agent Green replies. “You’d never make it anyway. It’s amazing that you made it all the way here to begin with.” He pushes the chair back from the table and looks at Major Carter. “Let’s gather our things and get off this bucket. Call the SPs in to take Sergeant Grayson into custody for now.”

I don’t know why, but they will not let us leave, and they sure as hell won’t let me get off the ship and talk to Halley or anyone else. For some reason, they want to keep us all quiet. If they replace the command crew and take the ship, we all risked our lives for nothing, and Sergeant Fallon and everyone on New Svalbard are going to be dead in a few months.

I look at Agent Green, who returns my glance with a slight, self-assured smile that makes me instantly furious. Whatever his priorities are, he couldn’t care less that my friends are going to die if he gets his way. If I am about to get locked in a brig for the rest of humanity’s final chapter, I’ll at least get a last lick in, to wipe that smirk off this bureaucrat’s face. It’s not like I have much to lose anymore.

The bubble of barely contained rage that has been floating just below the surface of my consciousness pops, and I let the anger take over. I seize my PDP and throw it at Agent Green. He sees it coming and raises his data pad to deflect my throw, but he’s just a fraction of a second too late. The hard polymer shell of my loaner PDP hits him in the face, right on the bridge of his nose. He yelps and drops his data pad, which lands on the table with a dull clatter.

The major is already out of his seat when I lunge across the table. I grab the front of his uniform tunic and pull hard. He pulls back with force to resist getting pulled across the table. I give it half a second and then turn the pull into a push, letting go of his uniform and shoving him against the chest with both hands. He flies back and stumbles to the floor. The serving counter is too close behind him for clearance, and he crashes into it, arms and legs flailing.

“SP detail to the NCO mess,” Agent Green shouts. The blood is pouring freely from his nose. He backs away when I come around the table. When I am close enough for contact, he hauls off and shoots a surprisingly competent left straight against my cheekbone. I am so full of anger and adrenaline that I barely register the hit. I return the favor with a left straight of my own, which he blocks with his lower arm. Then I follow up with a right cross, and I put all my weight and force behind it. My fist hits him on the nose, almost exactly in the same spot my PDP nailed him just a moment ago. He collapses with a strangled-sounding little grunt.

Behind me, I hear the unmistakable sound of a pistol’s slide cycling and slamming home. I turn around to see Major Carter pointing a gun at me from his slightly crumpled position on the floor. He is aiming with one hand. The muzzle of the pistol wavers more than just a little, but at this range, he doesn’t have to be good, just lucky, and there are thirty rounds in his magazine.

“Move another centimeter,” he says. “Please.”

I freeze in place and hold my hands away from my body. Then I turn sideways, very slowly, until I offer him the smallest possible target.

“You are a logistics guy,” I say. “Carrying with an empty chamber.”

Behind us, the entrance hatch of the NCO mess slams open, and four civilian SPs pile into the room, PDWs at low ready. To my right, Special Agent Green sits up with a groan. He has his hand over his face, and there’s blood seeping out from between his fingers.

“Put this asshole in cuffs,” he says, his voice muffled.

With five guns pointed at me, I do my best to impersonate a piece of furniture. The SPs surround me, and one of them aims his PDW at my head.

“Hands behind your back. You make a move, I’ll hose you down.”

I do as instructed and put my hands behind my back. Immediately, someone else grabs me by the uniform and yanks me back roughly. Then I feel the hard plastic of a set of flex cuffs closing around my wrists.

Agent Green gets up from the deck and steadies himself. He wipes the blood out of his face with the back of his hand. The front of his loaner overalls is stained with red splotches. The high collar of his suit underneath has blood spatters on it as well. He looks at me with narrow eyes. Then he walks up to where the SPs are tightening the cuffs and patting me down. Without a word, he hauls off and punches me in the face, a solid right cross that cracks into my cheekbone and makes me see stars. My knees buckle, but the SPs on either side of me keep me from falling down. Agent Green takes a step back and observes me as I sway. The side of my face is numb, but I know that the numbness will turn into throbbing pain in a few moments.

“Toughest guy on the block, huh?” I say.

He doesn’t even try to make his next shot a surprise. It’s a hard punch thrown wide from the shoulder, and his fist slams into the bridge of my nose, right in the spot where I hit him just a few moments ago. This time, my vision goes red, then black. The sudden sharp pain between my eyes tells me that my nose is broken. I fall backwards, and the SPs just let go of my arms and let me crash to the deck. Warm blood runs down my upper lip and then into my mouth, and I cough. Agent Green has a good, solid punch for a bureaucrat.

“Now we’re even,” he says to me. I open my eyes and look up at him. He wipes his own bloody nose on the sleeve of his overalls, leaving a dark red streak on the fabric.

“Take Staff Sergeant Grayson out of here and move him to the detention area on Foxtrot concourse. If he tries any tough-guy shit, shoot him in the spine and leave him for the cleanup robots.”

The SPs march me through
Indy
’s corridors and over to the docking collar. Two of them are behind me, weapons across their chests, and two are on either side of me, guiding me by the shoulders. When we reach the main airlock, Staff Sergeant Philbrick and Corporal DeLuca aren’t at their posts anymore. Instead, there’s a pair of SPs guarding
Indy
’s side of the docking collar.

When we pass through
Indy
’s main airlock and step out into the flexible collar connecting us to the station, it occurs to me that I may never step onto a spaceship again. I don’t have any personal gear left in my berth, but I’ve lived and fought with the people on that ship for a few tense months now, and not being able to say good-bye to them as I get hauled off
Indy
like a bag of refuse hurts a lot more than the broken nose or the sore and puffy cheekbone.

The corridors of Foxtrot concourse are nearly deserted. There are a few civilian techs scurrying about, but they give us wide berths. I’ve never seen a space station this empty. The impression is compounded by the fact that Independence is bigger and roomier than Gateway, which is always packed to the bulkheads with military personnel and materials in transit. Of all the sights I’ve seen since the Lankies arrived in the solar system, seeing one of the NAC’s two major space hubs almost devoid of people is possibly the most apocalyptic.

The civilian security police march me down the length of Foxtrot concourse, which is a long hike down the central corridor. At the main junction that connects the concourse to the central part of the station, there’s a security booth next to a wide airlock. The lead cop swipes his security tag at the door. Inside, there’s a duty desk and two more civilian police, both in regular black police fatigues with sidearms on their duty belts.

The SPs pat me down again. One of them runs a scanner up and down my body.

“Clean. Give the guy something for his nose. He’ll bleed all over the detention unit.”

One of the SPs uncuffs me, then another behind the desk produces a rolled-up bandage pad and tosses it over to me. I catch it and press it against my nose. The blood on my face is fairly well clotted now, and I do my best to clean some of the sticky mess, with limited success. The bridge of my nose hurts like hell, and I have a massive headache now, but I don’t want to ask the SPs for pain meds. I don’t want to ask them for any favors at all. They remind me too much of the casually brutal riot cops I met last time I went down to Earth a few months ago.

“I’m going to take the cuffs off,” the cop to my right says. “No funny shit, or that bloody nose will be the least of your problems today. Understood?”

“Understood,” I say.

The cop releases the flex cuffs, which were tight enough on my wrists to leave deep red marks.

“This way,” he says. “Nice and easy.”

He leads me to a door at the back of the security station and opens it with his ID tag. We walk through the door into a detention berth. It’s a room maybe five meters wide and long, with stainless steel benches along the walls that are bolted to the floor. There’s a toilet in the corner of the room, and a holoscreen high up on one wall near the ceiling. It’s showing Network news with the sound muted.