Indomitable (35 page)

They passed over a small peninsula and an old lighthouse. “I'll think about it.”

The aircar banked again and the cabin filled with the scent of saffron.

“Taking the honorable way out, are we?” The voice was laced with maternal sarcasm. “In my book it's called quitting. You are better than that, Lieutenant.” Promise's mother, Sandra Paen, sat on the opposite bench in the cab, facing her and the captain. Sandra's anger hit Promise cold, every bit as real as the captain's. Sandra was dressed in plain clothes cut with taste, and her shirt, belt, and pants fit her contours perfectly.

No, it's not, Mother. It's called bowing out with honor.

“That's total nonsense,” Sandra said. “You've made this mess, munchkin. Now fix it.”

Just like that?
Promise thought.

Yes.

Promise heard the one-word response in her head as clearly as if her mother had spoken to her aloud.

“Apologies go a long way,” Sandra said. “You put the woman on the defensive. Really, munchkin, what did you expect? You could have just closed the door behind you. But no, you had to sic the dog on her.”

“I did not.”

Sandra crossed her arms and dared Promise to prove her wrong. “Just apologize, and be done with it.”

Just … just …

“Eventually, you're going to take my advice and do the right thing anyway so you might as well do it now and spare yourself the trouble.”

Stop using my sense of duty against me.

Sandra faded out of view though her voice lingered a moment longer. Now she sounded like she was speaking through Promise's mastoid implant. “That's one of the things I love the most about you, dear. I'd like to think you got that from me.”

Promise closed her eyes, felt dampness on her cheek, and quickly brushed it away. When she looked up, her mother was gone.

“Ma'am, about that transfer. Perhaps I was—”

Yates raised her hand. “Enough, Lieutenant. We've just met. Replacing you isn't an option. Believe me, I tried.” Yates briefly turned toward her. “I'm not happy with the situation but as I see it we only have one option. Our duty.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Yates's words yanked her up by the collar.

“Borrowing trouble won't improve the situation.”

“No, ma'am. We have enough of that already.”

Yates snorted. “Agreed.” Yates's right hand tapped the armrest between them. “I need your candid advice, Lieutenant. I expect you to be honest and candid, nothing less, not now or ever. If you're to be my XO you must back me to the hilt in public and speak your mind when we're alone.”

“Ma'am, in that case, the captain needs a new executive officer.”

“Possibly.” Yates's face became unreadable. “Is that your best advice? If it is I'm disappointed. You're rattled and your jacket suggests you don't do
that
easily. Under normal circumstances, I'd kill to get an officer of your caliber.”

“And now, ma'am?”

“For starters, I'd like to strangle the general's mutt.”

Promise turned to the window and the terrain below. They were flying high enough for her to notice how the roads followed the natural contours of the land. They flew over an orchard and a small lake, and a sailboat far from the shore. In the distance she could see the spaceport and the outlines of several dropships and smaller shuttles nestled in their bays. There was the tower. Her unit was waiting. No, not hers anymore. What would she say to her Marines, to Yates's Marines? The situation seemed completely untenable, not to mention completely unfair. A transfer made sense. She could resign her commission. The odds of the Corps accepting that weren't …

“Ma'am, back at the house. I can only imagine what you must think of me. I'm afraid some of it is probably true.”

Yates actually laughed. “Did you sic that four-legged bastard on me?”

“I meant you no … well … I didn't mean to … Ma'am, I was angry.” Promise threw her hands into the air. “I
am
angry. I'm grappling with a lot of changes in my life. I'm going to get my footing back, on my word as an officer, as your executive officer. You have my word.”

Yates shifted in her seat toward Promise, eyes open and thoughtful. “Tell me, Lieutenant, what's your read of this situation? I've just replaced the CO of Victor Company—you. Yet, you're still here as my XO. How do you think our Marines are going to take that?”

Ours.
It was the olive branch Promise needed to snap out of it.

“I screwed up, ma'am. It's as simple as that. Battalion wants a seasoned company commander in charge of Victor Company. That officer isn't me, at least not yet.
Your
Marines deserve to know the truth, at least that much.”

“Just like that?”

Promise spread her hands wide. “It's the least I can do.”

“Do you always do your duty, Lieutenant?”

That nearly did it. Lit her anger off like a chem torch.

“I've struck a nerve.”

Shut up, P.

“Don't agree with the powers that be, do you?”

Keep it shut, Lieutenant. Just. Keep. It. Shut.
Promise imagined shoving Yates out the door as they flew.

“You must have really pissed someone off in a very high place. Been there, done that. I can relate. You'll live, believe me.”

“I'll try, ma'am.”

“Oh, Lieutenant, you'd pay for that one if I didn't like you so much.”

Promise laughed uncomfortably.

“Lighten up, Promise. That was a joke.” Yates grabbed a bottle of water from the chiller at their feet and took a long drink. “Tell me, what do you know about counterinsurgency?”

COIN?
The non sequitur took Promise by surprise. “Honestly, not much, ma'am.” Asymmetrical warfare. Guerrilla tactics. Textbook definitions she could spout off, which wasn't the same thing as real knowledge of the subject. COIN doctrine had been around for as long as people had been killing each other. The little guy's way of fighting back. The sum of her knowledge came from a self-paced course on the nets, part of her degree in pre-Diaspora military conflict, from the University of Salerno. She'd earned that on her own time before being field-promoted to second lieutenant. Her brain wasn't working particularly well at the moment, and it wasn't calling up the dates and names and theories. At least she recalled the big takeaway. Direct engagement, shock and awe, swamping an enemy's defenses with superior firepower—these were all ideas conventional forces understood well, and militaries throughout human history had trained for the wars they'd already fought with tactics they'd already mastered. The average jane or jack knew little else.

“It's not exactly covered at Officer Candidate School, ma'am. We tend to leave asymmetrical warfare to SPECOPS, or the spooks.”

“That's a vast understatement. We don't teach our platoon commanders a lot of things in OCS, and then we send them out to garrison the rim.”

A small craft broke the sound barrier nearby.

“I did a tour on Clear Harbor, which isn't more than a jump from your homeworld.” Yates set the bottle of water in the nearby holder and folded her hands in her lap. “Harbor has a lot of problems for a rimworld. Poverty, crime, and lawlessness in the outer provinces. Those we expected, particularly in the first decade or two post-incorporation. The homegrown terrorists were bent on stalling incorporation, or killing it altogether. Thankfully, they weren't very organized. I was a green lieutenant when my battalion hit Harbor's atmo, and then deployed to Forward Operating Base Nautilus. We stayed the longest five and half months of my career. We lost several dozen boots to improvised explosives and we were wearing mechsuits. One of my sergeants stepped on one. There wasn't much left to send home to his wife and child. A young boy walked up to my checkpoint and refused to turn around. I had him in my sights for several mikes when his jaw clenched and he bolted toward us. I didn't have a choice.”

The thought of killing a child rattled Promise to her core.

“Lieutenant, they were all dressed the same, like every other citizen of the planet. Women, men, and even children. They struck our blind spots during patrols and disappeared into the markets. They hid behind innocents and took refuge in holy places. It was not conventional and it wasn't fair and to some degree that's what we're headed for on Sheol. Sheol doesn't have the population centers of Harbor.” Yates looked down the bridge of her nose. “Be grateful for that. But it does have mines to protect, and it has the terrorists and they won't hesitate to strike from the shadows. I'm assuming command of Victor Company because of my experience on Harbor. Battalion wants someone with on-the-ground experience dealing with terrorist scum like the Greys. That's the official line and I expect you to toe it. I'm not letting you off easy. I won't embarrass you or throw you under the track in front of the unit either. You're a RAW-MC officer and my XO, and I expect you to do your duty, unless you prove you are unfit for the post. Then I
will
relieve you of it. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“That's why I'm here, Lieutenant, and that's why you need me as your CO. That's why Victor Company needs me as its CO. Clear? Nothing lasts in the Corps, not forever. We're a dynamic breed. The situation on the ground changes all the time, the tactics we use change, the chain of command changes. I won't undermine you in front of the company. Listen, look, and learn. V Company is still a raw unit. It's still working up. Most of the company has little history with you. They will adjust. Tell your friends not to make this personal or I will. Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought. While some of what has happened to you may be personal—and I highly suspect that it is—not all of it is. The parts that matter most aren't.

“You're a RAW-MC officer, a very capable, very new officer at that. Remember who you are. Follow my orders and we will get along famously.”

 

Forty-two

MAY 25
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 0730 HOURS

THE KORAZIM SYSTEM, PLANET SHEOL

NEXUS CITY, LOWER RIA BURROW

Jordas Tarakov woke at
her usual time, just before Sheol's red-cloud dawn. Her sheer chemise brushed the cold floor of her high-rise apartment. The entire east-facing wall of her bedroom was constructed out of penetratorproof plexi, from the ceiling to the floor. Outside she saw a typical Sheol morning. Heavy clouds lit by an old sun, and polluted rain with high winds projected throughout the day. Below her 367th-level view lay the tightly packed city of Nexus, a corporate enclave of modern scrapers filled with air lanes already crammed with morning traffic. Beneath the city lay a floating foundation of permastone, nearly ten square kilometers of earthquake-resistant composites that could stand up to a thirteen on the Yuka-Toomi scale. Nexus was one of the great engineering marvels of the entire sector, a “quakeproof” city on a shifting planet that refused to be tamed.

A rust-colored public transport flew past Jordas's apartment window and briefly blocked out the sun's paltry rays. A little redhead waved from one of the transport's port windows. Though the girl couldn't possibly have seen her through the reflective plexi that tiled the building, Jordas waved back anyway. Then she tapped the plexi twice to activate the nets. She whisked aside this screen and that one until she found what she was looking for.

Ah, here we are.
Nexus's mayor was speaking at the 11:30
A.M.
ribbon-cutting ceremony inside the terrarium. Mayor Engel's speech would last nearly an hour, because
Mayor
Engel always went long. About three thousand souls were expected to attend, after a five-klick run through the streets of Nexus. The winner would break the ribbon at the finish line outside the city's new terrarium. The Morton-Saki Tactical Firm was handling security and manning tented checkpoints along the runners' route. Armored drones would scan the skyways while humanoid sentinels patrolled the ground routes for potential terrorist threats. Random citizen scans and retinal maps were authorized. The nets reminded Jordas to please comply if stopped. The sentinels were just doing their job. “Refrain from kicking the bots, please,” said a prominent loop. Another assured the body politic, “The city may be in effective lockdown but we are on low alert. Be sure to bring your rebreathers and rain shields to the run. The citywide deflector gird is only partly operational. Acid rain again. Have a fun and productive morning.”

A looping vid on the Corporate Congress's daily page drew her eye to a small boy with handsome features and walnut eyes. He was pulling his mother up a set of steps to a dais inside the Nexus Interplanetary Terrarium, outside the OnWae exhibit.

A sad smile crossed Jordas's face, drawing her hand to her heart.
He's grown so much in just the last standard month.
Her affections for the boy created a dangerous conflict of interest between her personal and professional lives. If her boss found out, he'd kill her for it. Jordas clenched her teeth to a regain a measure of control.
You had to go and get attached.

She paused the vid and lingered on the boy's eyes.
My Dietrich's eyes.
Jordas steadied herself against the plexi and drew slow, steady breaths to push aside the nausea in her gut.
He's collateral damage in a war I didn't start.
She almost believed the lie. Jordas slammed the plexi with a closed fist.
The corporate mongers have raped this planet long enough. They've grown fat from the toil and labor of the miners' guild. Sheol's wealth belongs to the system, to the people of Korazim, not to our Republican taskmasters on Hold.
She spit at the plexi, and then ordered a sanibot to clean it up.