Earth 2788 (16 page)

“The handover
ceremony went beautifully.” I pulled a face at the exemplary Military officer
in the right hand portrait, and imitated his lazy voice. “Farm boy did well. I …”

My lookup
chimed. I checked the screen, saw it was Drago Tell Dramis, and accepted the
call.

“We’re nearly
ready, sir,” he said.

“I’m on my way.”

I headed across
to the central dome, and found it had been transformed. All the partitions for
rooms and corridors had been removed to leave one massive, echoing space. It should
have been dark and gloomy, but glowing, colourful abstract images were
projected on the curving, grey flexiplas interior of the dome, and the floor
was covered by speckles of gold. Overhead, tiny gold suns drifted around,
casting random pools of light beneath them.

It all looked
both spectacular and horribly familiar. Naturally it would look familiar. Every
handover party stole ideas from ones that came before it, I’d gone to a lot of
handover parties in six decades, and even helped organize a few. My memories of
the first ones were pure joyful exuberance, only tempered by the awareness that
I mustn’t get powered enough to set off any distress flares. At least, not
inside a dome!

Later, the three
of us had been old enough and senior enough to at least try to behave ourselves,
and then …

In the last
twenty years, I’d been to a couple of handover parties, but I hadn’t stayed
long at any of them. I’d give this one an hour or two before I went to hide in
my quarters.

I shook away the
memories, and looked around for Drago. The dome was already filling up with
people, some wearing their Military uniforms and others in distinctive clothes
specific to various sectors or worlds. Most of the people wearing those clothes
wouldn’t have been born on those worlds themselves, but their ancestors had.
One of the ways the Military kept its links to the sectors, was to encourage
its officers to maintain their diverse cultural heritage. A handover party was
one of the classic situations where that diversity showed.

Drago came over
to meet me, looking resplendent in a Betan toga. “What do you think of the
decor, sir?”

“Excellent job.”
I pointed at the floor. “Are the gold specks the same dust you used in the
flypast at the handover ceremony?”

He grinned. “Yes.
Commander Leveque advised us how to mix it with glue and spray it onto the
floor.”

I smiled. “I’m
delighted to hear my Threat team leader has been entering into the party spirit.”

“Permission to
give the five minute warning, sir?”

“Permission
granted, Major.”

Drago tapped at
his lookup. I clenched my hands and braced myself. I told myself I was ready
for the base sirens to go off, just the way they did at the start of every
handover party. I told myself they wouldn’t be screaming alarm signals, but
sounding the lighthearted notes of the base stand down. I told myself it
wouldn’t affect me this time, but of course it did.

The second the
first note sounded, I was nearly two decades back in time. The sirens were
blaring out the evacuation sequence, and I was being dragged along the floor of
a corridor. Both of my legs had been smashed to pieces despite the protection
of my impact suit, and the man dragging me had lost part of one arm. I was
screaming at him to leave me, but he somehow got me to the portal and thrust me
through.

I’d arrived in
an emergency evacuation centre, been grabbed by a triage doctor, and then waved
on to an officious medical team. It was two years before I forgave them for
saving my life. It was three years before I was anything remotely like a
functional human being. It was four years before I wore a Military uniform
again.

I’d built a new
life since then, and it worked after a fashion, but I kept a defensive wall
between it and my old one. I kept in touch with a few people, some ties went
too deep to break, but things could never be the same now I was alone. Parties
were just one of the things I’d left behind me.

I came back to
the present and found Drago staring at me with a face filled with concern. “Are
you all right, sir?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I
said, in what I hoped was a brisk voice. “You’d better go and get ready for the
vid show.”

“Yes, sir.”

Drago gave me a
last doubtful look, but dutifully went away. Civilians led nice, safe lives,
and could expect to celebrate their hundredth before dying. Things were very
different for the Military. A lot of officers lived with bereavement or mental
scars, and the Military convention was to show respect by quietly accepting
occasional oddities without pushing for painful explanations.

I hoped that
these days the only outward sign of my past problems was my odd reaction to
base sirens. I kept my conversations with dead people to the privacy of my
quarters, but Commander Stone openly addressed comments to the ceilings or
walls. By now, the whole base must have worked out that she was talking to
someone she’d loved and lost, but only her husband, myself as her commanding
officer, and our Medical team leader needed to know it was her twin sister.

The lights of
the floating suns were dimming now, and an image of Maia from space was
projected on a special flat section of wall. Blue and white, like all of the
carefully selected colony worlds of humanity. When the image changed to the
flag of humanity, everyone in the dome, in uniform or not, saluted.

My own voice
started speaking, recorded from the handover ceremony, reciting seven names.
There was a face displayed on the wall for each name, and then the screen
changed to show an image of me holding up the crystal globe. The woman
colonist’s voice rang out around the dome.

“This world is
called Maia.”

Then the music
started, and everyone relaxed. The solemnities were over, and it was time to
remember the moments that had either been funny at the time, or we could laugh
at now we knew they’d ended happily. The vid began by showing a member of the
Science team, staring at a screen of technical information.

“This is odd,”
he said. “Sample 2782/94223 is virtually identical to an Earth apple.”

Another
scientist stepped into view, his face outraged. “That’s not a sample! That’s part
of my lunch!”

Everyone
laughed, and another vid clip started. A group of Military scientists and
Commander Leveque were frowning at a small furry creature lying in the corner
of a cage.

“It’s not like
Mabelle to just lie there like that,” said one of the scientists. “She always
comes to say hello and beg for an extra treat. She’s making these odd squeaking
noises too. Do you think she’s ill?”

At this point,
the small furry creature stood up, revealing what was underneath her.

“I think there’s
a 100 per cent probability Mabelle has had babies,” said Leveque.

I heard
Commander Stone’s laughter join with mine, and turned to see that she and her
husband had come to stand next to me.

“It’s been a
pleasure serving with you, sir,” said Leveque. “You haven’t changed your mind
about retiring?”

I’d been asked
that question a lot lately, but never by Leveque. My Threat team leader was a
tactical expert, and had waited until now to ask me about my retirement plans,
because he knew this would be my weakest moment. I’d spent a long time living
and working with the people laughing at the vid clips. I was feeling emotional
and it was very tempting to say that yes, I’d changed my mind. I could accept
another Planet First command, keep a lot of my officers together, move on to
another world, but …

I shook my head.
“It’s time to step down.”

The next vid
clip was of an outside view of the base, obviously taken by one of the external
surveillance cameras. It showed one of the large freight portals we used to
portal armoured sleds out to collect samples from distant locations.

Drago’s recorded
voice started speaking. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any vid coverage from his
aircraft for this. The vid bee attached to its nose had been eaten.

“I can see one
of the flying lizards hovering just clear of the trees. It looks like a very
small one. Well, relatively small. Maybe a third the size of an armoured car.
If I shoot that one, it should fall on open ground. I’ll be able to collect the
body with a lift beam, and bring it back to base.”

“No!” shouted
the real Drago. “What unspeakable person sneaked this into the vid sequence?”

“The unspeakable
person was me!” called the voice of Drago’s deputy, Captain Marlise Weldon.

“Well, take it
out right now, Captain. That’s an order!”

“I’m afraid it’s
too late to make changes, sir,” said Marlise, in an unconvincingly regretful
voice. “The entire sequence has been viewed and approved by the Colonel.”

Drago groaned. “Please,
someone have mercy and shoot me. I don’t …”

The end of his
sentence was drowned out by his own recorded voice. “Commencing my attack run
now, and …”

There was a
weird, high-pitched shriek, followed by Drago’s voice shouting. “Oh chaos! The
lizards aren’t loners after all. This one’s called its friends for help.”

My own voice was
speaking now. “Get out of there fast, Major.”

“Leaving as fast
as possible, sir, but there’s a whole mob chasing me, at least twenty of the
largest ones. Even if I leave them well behind, there’s a chance they can
follow me by scent. I can’t risk leading them all back to base.”

I felt my
recorded voice sounded impressively calm. The way I remembered this I’d been
starting to panic. We’d lost an armoured car to just one of these lizards, so
twenty of them … “We’ll activate peripheral freight portal 3 for you, Major.
Location should be appearing on your main display now. Fly through that to take
a shortcut home, and you should definitely shake off your hostiles.”

“Banking to head
for portal now.” There was a short pause before Drago spoke again. “Eighty
seconds from portal. Chaos take it, those lizards are fast. They’re losing
ground at the moment, but I’ll have to slow to a crawl to fly through the
portal. I might get a fighter through at speed, but this is a combination
transport so it’s a really tight fit. Shut down the portal connection the
second I’m through, because they’ll be very close behind me.”

“We’ll be ready
to shut down the portal, Major,” I said, “and we’re sending out a reception
committee in case any lizards make it through with you.”

The image on the
wall showed impact suit clad figures running out to man the massive base laser
cannons. The big freight portal was active now, lights flashing.

“Thirty seconds
to portal,” said Drago, “and … Oh nuke! The ones chasing me must still be
calling for assistance, because there’s more coming from ahead, blocking my
route to the portal. Some closing from the sides too. I’ll have to try and
shoot my way through the ones ahead to reach the portal.”

My voice wasn’t
saying anything now, because there was nothing helpful I could say. The vid
images showed the laser cannons had swung round to aim at the portal.

“Firing now,”
said Drago.

There was a
period where we couldn’t hear anything except strange thumps and rending
noises. This was the point where the vid bee got eaten. For a minute there,
we’d thought Drago had been eaten as well.

Finally, Drago’s
voice gasped. “Coming through. Lost lateral thrusters. Got a passenger.”

An aircraft flew
in through the portal and slid across the ground at high speed. Well, most of
an aircraft. Part of the left side had ripped off against the edge of the
portal, and a giant lizard was hanging on to the right side, gouging holes with
a combination of teeth and claws. The portal exploded in a shower of sparks,
just as the lizard lost its grip, went tumbling sideways, and was instantly
blasted to pieces by the base laser cannons.

Loud cheers rang
round the dome as the vid clip ended.

“It’s true what
everyone says,” called out Marlise Weldon. “Drago really is irresistibly
handsome. At least, he’s irresistibly handsome to giant flying lizards!”

“Have mercy,”
pleaded Drago. “Start the next vid clip.”

The next vid
clip duly started, but my mind was still on the lizards. We’d had to go for
global extermination in the end, because the nightmare things could migrate
between continents. Global extermination was always a last resort because of
the potential ecological consequences, but it was that or abandon K21228.

“I still can’t
believe Drago got that aircraft through the portal, let alone survived
uninjured,” muttered Nia Stone from next to me. “I’ve tried it myself on a
simulator twenty times. Even with the variable wings fully swept back, the
aircraft barely fits through by itself, and with the lizard clinging to one
side …”

“Drago had to collide
with one side of the portal or the other,” said Leveque. “The weight of the
lizard was already spinning his aircraft to that side and he had no lateral
thrusters to correct the spin. The natural instinct would be to hit the lizard
into the side of the portal, try to kill it or at least make it let go, but the
impact would spin the aircraft even further so he wouldn’t make it through the
portal.”

Leveque shrugged.
“Drago had to fight his instinct, and deliberately hit the other side of the
portal, so losing his aircraft wing would straighten his angle of flight, and
the cockpit would make it through the portal intact. If he got it right, his
impact suit would protect him in the crash landing, but the margin for error
was impossibly small.”

My lookup chimed.
I answered the call, but half the crowd was still shouting out teasing remarks
aimed at Drago. I could see the head and shoulders of a Major on the screen,
but I didn’t recognize the man, and I couldn’t hear a word he was saying.