The Drift Wars (10 page)

“Hear
that?” she asked, unstrapping him. “You’ve only just arrived
and already they put you to work.”

Linda
pressed a button and electric motors whirled, folding the bed into a
seat. Peter saw that he’d been laying on a steel table, with
runnels like a cutting board, leading to drain holes in each corner.
Water trickled down his back as the bed angled up.

Linda
felt Peter’s forehead, then pulled back his eyelids and peered in.

“Looks
good,” she said. She offered her hands; they were so small that
they disappeared inside his own. They were no longer hot, only warm.
“Gently,” she said, leaning back and pulling him to his feet. He
towered over her.

“Lift
your left foot and rotate it,” she ordered. “Good. Now the
other.” She watched him, nodding. “You’re good to go.”

Peter
stared down at Linda, trying to see the face behind the mask. She
had wide cheekbones and a long nose that raised her mask like a
tentpole. She cleared her throat and shook her hands—she had let
go, but he was still holding on.

“Sorry,”
he said, blushing, letting them drop. “Which way to…?”

“Through
the door,” Linda said. “Just follow the arrows. And don’t
forget that.” She pointed to his duffel, which lay beside the bed.
Peter suddenly realized that he was completely naked. He lurched for
the bag and held it over his crotch.

“Thanks,”
he said, backing out the door.

“Just
doing my job, kid,” she said, amused. She reached for her mask,
but the door closed before it came off.

—   —   —

The
hallway was long and wide, with freestanding steel walls that opened
to the base’s vaulted ceiling. Men shuffled like zombies, knocking
mindlessly into Peter. He stepped to the side, pulled on his
clothing, and joined the flow.

The
roof arced upward as he moved toward the center, fading into the
heights. The base looked large enough to swallow the Training
Orbital a dozen times over.

Corridors
appeared on either side of the hall, and men split off, thinning the
crowd. Peter found one labeled with his division, Digamma San. It
was lined with doors. Halfway down, he found his platoon’s
ident-code, DS-52.

The
door opened to a small dormitory with twelve tightly packed bunks.
Peter was the last to arrive; the rest of the platoon was dressed
and unpacking. Saul and Ramirez played cards at a small table in the
middle.

“Don’t
be shy,” Mickelson said from behind Peter, urging him inside with
a hand to the shoulder. Seeing their sergeant, the men hopped to
attention.

“Form
up,” Mickelson barked, and they snapped into a line. After five
months of Basic, you could have trimmed the entire platoon’s nose
hairs with one shot of a laser.

Mickelson
walked down the line, inspecting the men as if they were used cars.
He had a slight limp that Peter had never before noticed. The
sergeant gave each man a once- over and then put them all at ease.

“I
have some good news, gentlemen,” he said. “Command wanted to
give you a warm welcome, so they’ve given us a priority mission.
We move out at fourteen hundred, which is one hour from now. So skip
the makeup and get your asses in your suits.”

—   —   —

“You
heard about the third race?” Saul yelled. Peter could barely hear
him over the rattling ship, which bucked and swerved as it sliced
through the planet’s atmosphere.

“No,”
Peter said, taking it as the start of a joke. “What about the
third race?”

“I
heard a rumor that there is one. Some new Riel that we haven’t
seen before. Command intercepted an enemy transmission, but the
video was too garbled to get a good look.”

“Great,”
Peter said. “We haven’t even seen the other two yet.”

The
ship banked hard, weaving, throwing the men around inside their
suits. Peter had expected his first combat jump to be harder than
any in Basic, but this was too much. In addition to the normal
turmoil, they had been dodging enemy fire for the last ten minutes.
He clutched his chest where Amber’s locket hung inside his suit.
He was glad that she couldn’t see him now, as scared as he was.

“Oh,
crap,” Mickelson snarled over the open comm. He leaped to his feet
and cupped his hands to his helmet as if covering his ears.
“Incoming!” he yelled as the ship’s hull cracked open. Peter
gazed up. The stars floated peacefully in a black pool; then a wall
of fire ripped through the ship.

The
white light clicked on and Linda sat beside him, face hidden by a
surgical mask. “Follow my finger,” she said, moving it around,
her own eyes on the monitor. “I said follow it.” Peter did this
time, not sure how she knew otherwise.

“Good,
now recite the alphabet.”

Peter
did as he was told; Linda ignored him, typing on the monitor.

“What’s
the last thing you remember?” she asked.

“Graduation,”
Peter replied. “Basic Training.”

“Good,”
she said. “Anything else?”

“Yes,”
Peter said. “You.”

“Me?”
she turned to him, confused.

“You,”
he repeated.

“Be
serious,” Linda said.

“I
am,” Peter said. “Linda.”

She
looked at the monitor. “No,” she said, shaking her head. Then
she figured it out. “Ingenious,” she said sarcastically, tapping
her nametag.

“Linda
75,” Peter insisted. “Because of the room number.”

“The
room…?” she asked. Peter had meant to impress her, but she only
looked concerned. She scrolled around the monitor, reading. “That’s
impossible,” she mumbled. “How could he know—”

A
door swung open behind Peter, and Linda started.

“Is
everything okay, Linda?” a man asked.

“Everything
is fine,” she replied evenly. She raised a hand to her temple,
pressing against the hair, and turned to face the intruder.

“That’s
good,” he said. His voice was unnaturally calm, like a
psychiatrist’s. “Would you mind joining me in my office?”

“Yes.
Of course, sir.”

“Now?”
the man asked with a tinge of impatience.

“But
he’s just—”

“It’s
not going anywhere, Linda.”

“Fine,”
she said. “I’ll start the epinephrine and be right there.” She
gazed at the unseen man, staring him down. The door shut.

Linda
yanked off her mask and tossed it on Peter’s chest. Her thin nose
curved out over thick, dark lips. She was the one thing Peter had
never expected; she was beautiful.

“Nice
work, kid,” she growled. “You’ll get us both in trouble.”
She spun Peter’s bed around and pointed at a camera on the
ceiling. “He watches everything.”

She
turned him back, unstrapped his arm, and jabbed in the needle.

“Just
lie there quietly,” Linda ordered. “I won’t be a minute.”

—   —   —

Peter
pumped his fist, curled his toes, and worked his jaw, doing
everything he could to raise his temperature. Fifteen minutes later,
he was ready. He stretched his free arm over his chest, reaching for
the strap. He got the very tip of his middle finger under the clasp,
angling it back and letting it loose.

Chest
free, he twisted further, releasing his other arm. He probed under
the bed and found the switch to raise it to a chair; then he leaned
over, unstrapped his legs, and pushed to his feet.

Peter’s
head went light. His knees buckled, and he teetered. He clutched the
bed rails, crouched and panting, then slowly straightened up. He let
go carefully, keeping his hands over the rails as he balanced on his
feet.
So far, so good.

At
the back of the room was a wide roll-up door. He put his ear to it
and listened, hearing nothing.

He
eased the door open and peered out. A long hallway ran in both
directions. It was wider than the one that Peter left by and
completely empty. Roll-up doors lined both walls, each painted with
a number. Peter went left; the doors counted up.

The
hallway ended at door 96. Tucked in the corner, a frosted plastic
door was labeled Supervisor. Peter padded softly up, his bare feet
numb from the cold metal floor. He heard a familiar voice—the man
who had called Linda away.

“If
there’s something wrong with the memory unit,” he said, “then
we kill the line. It’s as simple as that.”

“It’s
not a line,” Linda retorted. “He’s a human being.”

“You’re
a nurse, so you’re trained to feel that way. But this is
different. Special circumstances.”

“I
can’t see how.”

There
was a pause, followed by a sigh. “Try to think in terms of
assets,” the man said. “Take a broader view of our work. We
can’t let ourselves be distracted by the problems of a single
unit, because it will lower our—”

A
rattle echoed down the hallway; a garage door rolled up not twenty
yards away. Peter dashed across the hall and flattened into the
recess of a doorway.

An
empty bed slid into the hallway, guided from behind by a nurse. She
had the same brown hair as Linda, but hers was shorter and twisted
into a bun. She pushed the bed into the distance, and Peter crept
back to the supervisor’s door.

“But
there is nothing wrong with his memory,” Linda insisted. “I
checked the imprint three times. This has to be part of the design.”

“You
mean a flaw?” the man replied, incredulous. “A flaw in the
design?”

“No,
something else. Like an upgrade.”

“An
upgrade?” the man snapped. “And they didn’t tell us?”

Peter
winced—the man’s tone was violent. But then he was calm again:
“No, they wouldn’t, would they?” he mused. “They like to
keep us in the dark.”

Silence
followed. Sweat tickled inside Peter’s ear.

“Well,”
the man said finally, “we can’t call upstairs about every little
thing, can we? We’ll keep on for the moment. Who knows? Maybe this
flaw will simply disappear in the next the version.”

“I
don’t—” Linda started.

“We’ll
hope so,” the man cut in. “You should get back to your patient.”

“Yes,
sir” was the last thing Peter heard as he sprinted up the hall. He
slipped through door 75 and hopped onto the bed. He just had the
straps back in place when Linda returned.

She
ignored him at first, heading straight for the sink and violently
scrubbing whatever was inside. Then she checked the clock on the
wall and went to her desk. She sat down and stared at the wall,
motionless.

She
stood up ten minutes later, straightened her uniform, and pulled on
a fresh mask. She walked to Peter, smiling as if nothing had
happened.

“And
how are you doing?” she asked. She grabbed his wrist, then dropped
it, startled. “You’re sweating.”

“Squeezing,”
Peter said, motioning with his hands. “Like you said.”

Linda
inspected him suspiciously but found no other explanation. She
checked the clock and then her monitor. “I guess you’re done
early today,” she said with a shrug.

Peter
kept his body limp as she helped him to his feet, then grabbed his
duffel and lumbered out the door. He merged with the other naked men
and headed for combat.

After
five successful missions in five successive days, Peter got his
first R&R. He had been warned that things would move fast out
here in the Drift, but he was still exhausted.

It
wasn’t the physical exertion or the lack of sleep—he had had
plenty of both back in Basic—but the sheer number of casualties he
had witnessed. He had seen men shot out of the air and transports
burn in dark space, and he had fought across a field littered with
the bodies of an entire division. Of the twelve men in his original
platoon, only Saul, Ramirez, and himself remained. The most shocking
loss was Mickelson; their sergeant had always been so casual in
combat, as if he didn’t even believe in death. He was shot by a
Riel sniper who was too far away to see.

Peter
knew that he should be upset by everything he had witnessed, but it
just hadn’t sunk in. There just hadn’t been time.

Immediately
after each battle, the survivors were re-org’d into new platoons,
which meant new names, new drills, and new training. Then they were
rushed through dinner, issued sleeping pills to ward off the
nightmares common to active combatants, and marched to bed. Come
morning they’d be hustled off to the docks again.

Now,
when Peter finally had a break, all that was left was a jumble of
images.

—   —   —

All
missions had been suspended—word was they were waiting for
reinforcements, but as privates, they didn’t even rate that level
of information. What they knew was they had a few days off. Peter
persuaded Saul to go exploring with him.

Peter
wanted to meet someone from the navy, so they walked to the docks.
In addition to the ninety-six divisions—twenty million marines—the
base was home to tens of thousands of naval craft. Most were
unmanned transports, but even those would require repair and
maintenance. Peter figured there was a sizable navy somewhere on
base.

There
hadn’t been any navy recruiters back on Genesia, and Peter felt
like he’d missed an opportunity. Flying a ship was far more
exciting than just riding in one. Or at least that’s how he
figured it. He wanted to ask what it took to be a pilot, but so far
he’d only seen them over the communicators.

Saul’s
interest was more practical. The navy had something that the marines
didn’t: women.

“What
do you think of the new sergeant?” Peter asked as they navigated
the halls.

“Anyone’s
better than Mickelson,” Saul said.

“He’s
dead.”

“Yeah,”
Saul said. “I was there too. Sarge wasn’t the sort to get teary
about casualties, so I’ll return the favor.”

Peter
wanted to be shocked but found himself nodding in agreement.