The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera (12 page)
Read The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera Online
Authors: David Afsharirad
“The bomb has a sonic detonator,” I said as I hustled her out the front door and down the walkway to the street where the cab I’d come in waited. “A certain frequency of whistle sets it off. It has a range of up to a mile.”
“I don’t understand . . .”
We had just reached the cab when a strange high-pitched sound caught our ears and made us both look back.
A moment later came a horrible squelching bang, and the illuminated window of Grossman’s office was suddenly splattered with green. Green with streaks of red.
The green immediately began to spread, oozing through the cracks the explosion had made in the office windows, creeping over the outside surface of the building. Inside, I knew, it would be even worse, all that shining aluminum and steel vanishing under a rapidly spreading carpet of highly corrosive mold.
And what it did to human flesh and bone . . . well, it was a crime.
“Come
on!”
I said, and hustled Lillie up into the cab’s howdah.
I’d moved just one of the carboys from the factory basement into Grossman’s office, disconnecting the detonators from the others. I hoped it would destroy only the office block, leaving the plant intact. At least then the workers would still have their jobs, for a few more years at least, and their pensions after that. But I couldn’t be sure, so I wanted to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible.
Moving the carboy hadn’t been easy, or safe, but it wasn’t the first time I’d disobeyed my CO’s orders and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
“Take us to the port,” I told the cabbie. “We have an airliner to catch.”
When I saw Maria in the terminal bar, the tension that had been gripping my temples eased . . . and then immediately returned, even stronger.
I’d been too chicken to phone her directly. Instead, I’d called an old mutual friend and asked her to pass a message. I’d been worried she wouldn’t follow through, or that the message wouldn’t reach Maria in time, or that she’d get the message and pass on it. But she was here, sitting on a bar stool, clad all in black silk, with those magnificent legs crossed at the ankle. Smoking a cigarette, staring off into space, just waiting. Waiting for me at the bar, the way we used to do for each other back in happier times.
But when she heard what I had to say, she’d probably want to kill me.
As we approached, Lillie took away any opportunity I might have had to break the news gently. As soon as she saw Maria she ran toward her, sobbing over and over, “Daddy’s dead!”
Maria took the girl into her arms and held her tight. It made my heart ache, remembering those arms around my own shoulders, but I held back to give the two of them a moment together.
After a time, Maria raised her head from her daughter’s shoulder and looked me right in the eye.
She was dry-eyed.
“Mike,” she said. Just that, just my name, even as she patted her baby girl on the back.
“Maria,” I replied in kind. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has.” She squeezed Lillie again, gave her a silk handkerchief from her purse, and led her to a booth. They sat on one side, the daughter sobbing with her head on her arms, the mother stroking her back; I sat opposite them, noticing how similar and yet how different they were. Maria ordered gin-and-tonics for both of us—our favorite tipple, back when—and ginger ale for the girl.
“How did it happen?” Maria asked me after the waiter left. She didn’t look happy, but she wasn’t devastated either, just subdued.
The G&T sat in front of me like an accusation. I folded my hands on the worn Formica and composed my thoughts before proceeding. “Grossman was planning to destroy the factory for the insurance money,” I explained. “I caught him at it, but he went ahead with his plan anyway, there was an accident with the bomb, and he was killed. The office block is a total loss, I’m sure. The plant might be okay.” Was there anything important I’d left out? Oh, yeah. “I’m sorry about your husband.”
She didn’t even acknowledge my pathetic attempt at solace. “It isn’t just a coincidence that you’re here,” she said.
“No, it isn’t. He brought me here as part of his plan—he was hoping to kill me as well as blow up the plant. But I got away.” I was trying to tell the truth, but in a way that wouldn’t hurt anyone more than necessary. I was failing miserably on both counts. “Oh, and one other thing. Before he died, he admitted in Lillie’s hearing that he isn’t her real father.”
Lillie raised her head from her arms. There was mascara all over the sleeve of her white silk jacket. She looked at her mother accusingly. “Why didn’t you
tell
me?”
Maria’s face changed completely as she turned to her daughter, showing the deep, unbending love she’d once given to me. “I
couldn’t
, darling. I couldn’t hurt you like that. If you’d known, you would have had to choose . . . all day, every day. Do you pretend a love you don’t feel, and maintain the luxurious lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed? Or do you admit your true feelings, and get thrown back into the swamp with the other little fish . . . with the enmity of one of Cooksport’s richest and most powerful men as an additional weight around your neck?” She returned her attention to me, her expression going back to neutral. “I would never wish that choice on anyone.”
“You don’t have to choose any more,” I told her, and reached into my jacket pocket. “I got us tickets to L.A. on the
San Pablo
, leaving tonight.” I laid the envelope on the table, pushed it toward her. “It’s not first-class accommodations, but I got us a family suite, with two bedrooms. For the three of us. A real family, finally, after all these years.”
Maria’s face softened into the one I remembered . . . a little older, a little wearier, but still as full of hope and love as the one I’d known before the war.
And then it hardened again, and she slid the envelope back to my side of the table.
“I made my choice twenty years ago, Mike,” she said, and took a sip of her G&T. “Now I’m a society matron. I have responsibilities. I can’t just run away for love.” She looked down into her drink. “Someone has to keep Superior Silk running, for another few years at least, or this whole town will fall right into the swamp. “
“Who cares?”
“
I
care, Mike. The workers . . . the aboriginals need us. We’ve taken so much from them . . . I couldn’t just abandon them.”
“You don’t have to do this . . .”
“I don’t know how to be a detective’s wife!” she snapped. “I can’t make a happy home on just sunshine and oranges.” Then she seemed to gather herself up, and reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry, Mike,” she said, with a sweet, sad smile that showed she really meant it. “I’m too set in my ways to change now. Just leave me here with my mansion and my swimming pool and my million-dollar life insurance payout. I’ll struggle through.”
I picked up my G&T, tilted it back and forth. Watched the way the alcohol beaded on the inside of the glass.
Then I set it down.
“What about Lillie?” I asked.
They both looked at me. Both of their eyes so blue.
“It’s not too late for her,” I went on. “Let me take her out of this overcast, overheated swamp and back to L.A. where it’s sunny and clement all year round. I can’t offer her a mansion, but I make a decent living.” I turned to my daughter. “And I could use a good secretary.”
Lillie looked at her mother. Her mother looked back.
The connection that I saw pass between them was something I’ve never felt in my whole life—not with a woman, not with my own mother or father, not even with my wartime buddies.
And Maria nodded.
“Now boarding,” came the amplified voice of the terminal announcer, echoing across the terminal’s chipped terrazzo, “the
A. S. San Pablo
for Los Angeles. All aboard!”
The two women hugged and kissed and promised to write while I paid the tab, gathered up my suitcase, and marveled at what I’d seen pass between them.
It was a moment of shared sacrifice, mutual respect, and deep trust that would tear my cynical heart apart like a two-stroke lawnmower trying to run on high-test aviation fuel.
And I hoped to God that living with Lillie would teach me how to trust like that.
Maria let go of her daughter and, finally, gave me a hug. “If you let anything happen to her,” she whispered in my ear, “I’ll kill you.”
“I’ll do my best,” I murmured back.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” And she let go of me, except for one hand, and continued in a normal voice. “Take good care of my daughter, Mike.”
“She’s my daughter, too.”
“All aboard!” repeated the announcer, and we skedaddled. I looked back one last time as we walked away, but she was already gone.
It was still night when the airliner broke through the clouds, and for the first time in weeks I saw the stars—clean and bright and pure. A gleaming white pinprick for every regret in my life.
And then the liner passed out of Venus’s shadow and they faded away, replaced by the pure eternal blue of the sky between planets.
PICKET SHIP
by Brad R. Torgersen
When the mantis aliens attack an outpost colony, it’s up to Chief Warrant Officer Amelia Schumann to get word of the renewed threat to Earth. But a crash landing on a hostile planet complicates things. What’s more, Amelia and her crew aren’t the only ones planet-side. The world on which they’ve landed is being primed for mantis colonization, and the mantis Queen Mother has given her hive-mind children a clear directive: exterminate all humans.
THE SEVEN-MAN
picket ship bucked and slewed wildly as it flew through thick, turbulent air. Tall spires—the trunks of temperate marshland trees—whipped past the forward canopy while Chief Warrant Officer Amelia Schumann fought for control. Computerized alarm bells screamed in her ears. There had been too much battle damage. Coming down from orbit had made things worse. Schumann slammed her throttles wide open, pulling the control stick into her stomach and willing the vessel to gain altitude.
No good. The little spacecraft shuddered horribly. Piece by ragged piece, chunks of the starboard retractable aero wing peeled off. The control surfaces of the tail planes also remained frozen—their power leads cut by hostile fire.
A large hill loomed in the distance. It was all Amelia could do to nudge the nose of her vessel a few centimeters to port, hoping desperately to avoid the bluff.
Too little, too late.
The belly of the picket ship caromed off the top of the hill, sending it ass-over-teakettles, to come crashing into the middle of the huge trees on the other side. Chief Schumann screamed, every muscle in her body clenching up—waiting for the end to come. Branches and leaves smashed through the ruined canopy, whipping the cockpit and tearing viciously at her flight armor.
Cloudy water suddenly flooded the cockpit and immersed Amelia’s helmet as she hung upside down in her seat. The flight armor should have sealed tight to the helmet when the cockpit was compromised, but something was wrong. Water began to flow around Amelia’s scalp, reaching upwards to cover her eyes, then her nose. Amelia screamed and fought with the restraints of her seat as the water flooded her sinuses, cut off her air supply: stinking, choking,
killing.
Schumann writhed and banged back and forth in her seat, the straps holding her in a death grip as her wrecked spacecraft sank, sank, sank—
Amelia suddenly blinked. There was complete silence, save for the sound of warbling insects. Not precisely Earth crickets, but similar. The bright stars of night filled Amelia’s vision. Sweat dripped off her face, and her throat felt ragged. There was a firm grip on her right hand and she realized that she was shaking.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” said a concerned, deep voice.
Ladd,
Amelia thought with a sigh.
Thank God!
“I . . . I think I’m okay,” she whispered hoarsely.
Sergeant Warner Ladd held a canteen to Amelia’s lips, and she found herself greedily gulping at a stream of lukewarm, clean water.
“You were dreaming,” Ladd said, deadpan.
Amelia sat slowly upright, becoming aware of the other Fleet soldiers who surrounded her. They were barely visible in the night light, but they were there, watching.
The tension was palpable. Amelia could feel their uneasy contempt. For her. For putting them all in this predicament. Instead of being well on their way back to Sol System—to warn Earth—they were now grounded. Unable to complete their primary mission. And in serious jeapordy of getting killed. This wasn’t what they’d trained for. This wasn’t how the war was supposed to go.
Amelia almost laughed at the absurdity of her thoughts.
War.
What did any of them really know about fighting? She was an astronaut, after all. And the others were technicians of one kind or another. Their rank had been largely thrust upon them when the mantis aliens had crushed the human colony known as Marvelous. A lone starship—fleeing in the wake of Marvelous’s destruction—had managed to warn Earth. And Earth had slapped together a hasty defense.
The Fleet: a drafted amalgam of existing civilian and military personnel. Not to mention existing ships and space stations.
Dozens of little vessels like the one Amelia had flown—and lost—were hastily constructed, and posted in orbit around every human world. So that if the aliens struck again . . .
That the mantes had attacked New America meant that they might be striking elsewhere too. It was the job of the picket ships to send word of attack, while the bigger ships took the fight to the enemy. And gave Earth—and the other worlds under Fleet’s protection—enough time to prepare a response.
But the space surrounding New America had been quickly flooded with enemy ships. The few missiles Amelia had managed to fire, had died impotently against what she could only describe as translucent energy shielding.
There’d been almost no chance for escape.
Which didn’t make Chief Schumann feel any better. She was the pilot. It had been her job to make a quick exit. She’d acted too slowly. The jump apparatus could not be operated in close proximity to a gravity well as deep as that of New America. When a mantis missile had proximity detonated near her spacecraft . . .
Amelia wiped at her eyes.
“Ma’am, I think we should pick up and move on,” Ladd said. “The mantes have no doubt been searching for us since we left the crash site, and that muffled scream you just let out will act like a beacon for any mantis within a thousand meters.”
Ladd’s voice held no hint of emotion. To Chief Schumann, his manner was relieving and infuriating at the same time. The rest of the crew blamed Amelia for what she had done to them, so why not Ladd? She almost wished he would simply chew her out for her mistake. She deserved it. Yet, he remained nonplused and professional—the picture of a model NCO.
“You’re right again, Ladd. I . . . I’m sorry,” Amelia said. “We should get away from this place. And try another call to the
Aegean.
”
Ladd voiced agreement, and Amelia levered herself off the root bed she had been sleeping on. Then she dropped into the hip-deep water that surrounded her. The wetlands were humid, and cool, and it was only the vacuum-capable combat armor—worn by all—that kept them from falling prey to hypothermia. Amelia shouldered her compact pilot’s rifle by its sling, and followed Ladd as he waded his way back to where the other five survivors of the crash were huddled amongst the trees.
It moved over the water with its siblings—the many acting in unison, to almost form a single entity. Like wolves following the trail of their prey, they hunted, tracing the taste of machine oils, metal, and human flesh. The creature—using the sensory capacity infused by its saucer-shaped, biomechanical carriage—surmised that its tactical group had indeed discovered the location of the crashed hostile spaceship.
The mantis group leader’s orders had been clear: exterminate all humans. This order had come from the very top. The Queen Mother was very angry that such a prime, vital planet as this one, had been violated by the presence of the soft, bipedal aliens. It was an affront to mantis supremacy in the galaxy.
Human intelligence was dangerous. Much too random. In mantis society, every individual knew his or her place from the moment awareness was attained. The humans, meanwhile, were messy. Disorganized. They built haphazardly, they lived haphazardly, they were stupid, and they were
in the way.
So, the Queen Mother’s forces came to this world—which would make an excellent future mantis colony, by the looks of it—to cleanse, and prepare the way.
The tactical group found the human crash site.
Like the insects that they were, the mantes swarmed over the ship, probing for any signs of life. The scent of humans was still strong in the area, but there was no sign that the human crew had loitered. They’d fled further into the wetlands. Either towards what they thought would be safety, or away from pursuit. The group leader surmised that it mattered not. His force was good. If the crashed human ship was any indication, the fugitive crew numbered few. And the mantes could glide through the trees with ease, while the clumsy humans slogged.
When eventually the tactical group caught up with its prey, the humans would be no contest.
Signalling for his troops to follow, the group leader hurried off.
Amelia could almost sense the enemy lurking out beyond the farthest trees, waiting for the chance to spring, and pull her human crew to pieces with their serrated forelimbs. Grainy digital camera footage from the ship that had fled Marvelous told the story: the mantis aliens were carnivorous beasts. With bulbous insect-like eyes, and fearsome beaks filled with terrible teeth that vibrated when the aliens were aggressive. Or feeding. The footage seemed to indicate that there was little difference, once battle was joined. And those flying saucers the aliens rode on . . . nightmarish!
Still, while the company was true, hope flickered like a candle.
Chief Schumann watched Sergant Ladd’s back, and wondered about the man. He had served ten years in the United States Army, and fought in no human wars of which she was aware. Being pressed into Fleet service seemed to make no difference to him. He knew his job, and he knew his people, and he didn’t seem to worry about that which didn’t need worrying about.
Which just made Amelia’s guilt worse. The crew were clearly Ladd’s to command. Not hers. Oh, there had always been a degree of deference. But Chief Schumann was only a Chief by accident: utility pilots of all description being accorded the middle-step rank of Warrant Officer in Fleet’s laddered heirarchy. If Amelia flew the ship, Ladd clearly drove the men. Each of whom regarded the sergeant with trusting eyes.
For Chief Schumann, there were only wary glances.
She kept her eyes forward and pushed through the knee-high water. New America’s alien trees began to thin out, and the remnants of the picket ship’s crew soon found themselves in a wide, shallow patch of marsh which was only ankle deep.
Overhead, the bright stars sparkled and danced. But the eastern horizon was just becoming visible as dawn approached. Little lights maneuvered crazily in the sky overhead. Occasionally one of them would flare brightly, and die. Loud booms sounded in the distance—explosions from the mantis planetary invasion? The nearest city was over a hundred kilometers off. Perhaps other human craft had crashed? The bigger Fleet ships had numerous escape pods . . .
Amelia stopped, and called everyone to a halt. Ladd didn’t need to be told what to do. He hastily erected their portable emergency satellite dish. He tapped a few codes into the wrist key pad on his left arm and waited for his armor’s internal communications computer to uplink to any of the human-made ships that should have been in orbit. The
Aegean
being the newest, largest, and theoretically toughest. If any Fleet ship would be giving it back to the enemy, it would be the
Aegean
. Alien shields, or no alien shields.
There was a long pause, followed by static in the crew’s ears.
“Awwww, man!” Specialist Shaw drawled with much displeasure.
“We be effed,” came the voice of Corporal Powell, a heavy-weapons engineer who knew a picket ship’s missile bays like the back of his hand—and was the only troop large and muscular enough to tote their single squad weapon through the uneven, flooded terrain of the wetlands.
A cacophony of groupwide bitching suddenly errupted. Ladd tried to interject, but the crew had had enough, and were jawing at full steam, drowning out the Sergeant’s barritone barking. A day and a night of forced marching had rubbed nerves raw. Men went chest to chest. Somebody shoved somebody else.
That did it. They were dogpiling like children, splashing and shouting and filling the air with profanity.
Amelia tried to drown out the noise with her own sullen thoughts, but it was impossible. Even if there was no contact with Fleet in orbit, they still had to find a way to evade detection. Get back to civilization. Find a way to make a
difference.
A hot spark of anger suddenly flared up within Amelia. Maybe it was the deep exhaustion, or the sudden hopelessness, or the bitter resentment at her own guilty self-pity that caused her to snap.
“Have you lost your minds?” she bawled. “Do you really want to draw them down on top of us, like hawks on a pack of rats?”
The crew, not used to taking sharp orders from their young Warrant Officer pilot, froze in place.
“Keep your effing mouths shut!” Amelia barked. “The next person that says a single word is getting my boot in his balls!”
Chief Schumann’s chest heaved with anger as she spat her last words. And, for the first time, something barely approaching respect appeared in the eyes of the crew. Also appearing for the first time was a slight smile on the lips of Sergeant Ladd.
“Sergeant?” Amelia finally said, motioning a palm to Ladd as she plodded back over and retrived the satellite unit from its watery perch.
“Right,” Ladd growled low and strong. “You people heard the Chief.”
Amelia continued. “We’re still Fleet. We can’t accomplish our primary mission. But maybe we can do something else constructive. Those lights moving in orbit tell me that
somebody
is still fighting. We should see if we can too. We’re all from Earth, I know, and this isn’t our world, really. But for hell’s sake, as long as we’re stuck here, we should defend it like it
is
Earth! Because if we don’t, then what we’re seeing above us might soon be replayed in Earth’s night skies. Do we want mantis ships dropping down over New York or Hong Kong or Paris?”
