Guardian of Night (20 page)

Sam smiled slyly, then leaned over and kissed him. Her breath did remind him of his grandmother, but not in a shuddery incest way, Coalbridge decided. There was also the faintest trace of perfume combined in the scent of her. He knew she made a lot of money. What “a lot” might be was fairly vague to Coalbridge, who paid little attention to such matters. He figured her perfume was probably the expensive kind.

Sam rocked back in her chair, considered him. “Yeah, I think we are good together,” she said. “Too bad you’re going to be
light-years
away from me for the foreseeable future.”

“Demands of the service.” Coalbridge shrugged.

“Guess that’s why you give it your all when you’re back?”

“What makes you think I didn’t get any out on the Limit?”

Sam laughed and nearly snorted her beer through her nose. He found this as adorable as the rest of her traits and habits.

Sam was lovely.

Sam was smart.

Sam knew how to make nuclear weapons.

She was—

A keeper.

No, stop that. No time for that in this war. Least not for me.

“Oh, God.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Uh, I was wondering about your accent.”

“Told you I grew up in Alabama.”

“Yeah, but—”

“But I’m Punjabi?”

“What? No way! Thought you had a serious accident with a tanning bed.” Coalbridge considered. “Do they even have those anymore? Probably do it with churn. Everything’s different each time I come back.”

Sam smiled, ignored the question. “My parents were both from Delhi, but they came over in the 1990s and were rocket scientists at ATK for years and years. It was a contractor for the Space and Rocket Center,” Sam said.

“Whoa. Pardon me, but they must’ve been, like, ancient when they had you, right?”

“Mom was ninety-nine,” said Sam. “Dad was a hundred.”

“Love and rockets.”

“First rockets, then love,” Sam replied. “It was an arranged marriage. But they fell in love over the years.” Sam flicked an ash. “Or so they told me.”

“Rockets? Liquid hydrogen,” said Coalbridge, shaking his head. “Out-of-control madness.”

“It was what you had back then.” Sam finished her cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray. She had long, delicate fingers. Clear polished nails. Her metal watchband tinkled against the ceramic as she drew her hand back. “Anyway, I grew up in Huntsville and went to college at Vandy—where I met Griff, by the way—and grad school in Atlanta. So, yeah, the accent kind of stuck.”

“You’ve known Griff a long time?”

“Years and years.”

“Are you in love with him?”

Sam had been digging for another cigarette from her pack, which she’d stuffed in his shirt’s breast pocket. She did a double take, let the pack slide back down. “God, no, not anymore,” she finally said. “Sort of. Doesn’t matter.”

“Why aren’t you together then?”

This time Sam did pull out another cigarette. She carefully lit it before answering.

“I don’t know that I can tell you,” she said.

Coalbridge digested this for a moment. “Do you mean he has a problem . . . down there?”

Sam giggled. “No. I
can
speak to that. All systems are go with Griff. At least they were nine years ago.”

“Then what? Something to do with that ‘step on a crack, break your mother’s back,’ mindfuck he’s got going on?”

“Yeah, something to do with that.”

“Did that stuff hit him before or after the invasion?”

“After.” Sam breathed out smoke, considered. “Why do you care? You barely know the man.”

“True,” Coalbridge replied. How much to tell her? She had a top-secret clearance, but was this in any way a need-to-know situation? He decided it was.

“I expect to know him much better,” Coalbridge continued. “I requested him as the xenology specialist on my new command. It’s been approved. Got a text on my Palace while we were . . . Anyway, I just checked it.”

“You’re leaving
tomorrow
?”

“Yes.”

Sam seemed genuinely shocked—and worried. “Jim, what have you done? Griff doesn’t
do
space. It’s . . . it’s part of the OCD thing.”

Coalbridge shrugged. “He’s in the Extry, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but he’s afraid of the vacuum. He calls it a permanent crack. And don’t you get it? Griff can’t send
postcards
when he’s out in space.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you notice the writing? It’s how he calms himself.”

“I guess I didn’t get the whole show.”

“He writes postcards. Constantly. And they don’t count—not to him—unless he mails them.”

“Who is he writing to? You?”

“To his son,” Sam said.

“Oh, yeah, he mentioned a kid, now that I think of it.”

“Theodore. Neddie.”

“So he writes to Neddie? He can text him, or p-mail, leave it in the beta relay.”

“Theodore is dead, Coalbridge.”

“Huh?”

“Killed by the churn. Griff wasn’t there.” Sam took a long drag on her cigarette, breathed out over the red cherry end, fanning its flame further. “He was with me when it happened, actually.”

“Oh, man.”

“Yeah. Griff was separated from Bev at the time, but the divorce wasn’t final. Theodore was convinced his parents were going to get back together, of course.”

“Sure.”

“He was supposed to have spent the weekend with Neddie,” Sam said. “Instead, he begged off to spend the weekend having cheap sex with his new concubine.”

“God,” Coalbridge replied. “Is that why you two—”

“That’s exactly why, Coalbridge.” Sam brushed a stray hair from her eyes. Sadness. No tears.

She reached over to the table and tapped away her ash into an empty beer bottle.

“Look, Sam, I’m sorry about all that,” Coalbridge said. “But that guy is one of the world’s experts on sceeve psychology. Maybe the best there is. We’re not dicking around out there.”

“So let Griff figure it all out on Earth,” Sam said. She finished her beer, set the bottle down on the wooden table with clunk. “Does he know about this yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s going to flip.”

“Think he’ll protest his orders?”

“If he does, he’ll win,” Sam said. “Griff used to be a hell of a lawyer.”

So he’d been right after all in his first impression. Former JAG.

“He won’t win. Not on this one. But he might hate me.”

Sam considered. “If you convince him that you really need him . . . he’ll eventually find a way to be okay with it. He has methods. Ways around his limitations. The postcards are only one of them. For instance, he’s like you. Crazy about cooking. That’s funny, because I always was a terrible cook. Still can barely boil water. He promised to do all that when we . . .” She shook her head. “He promised a lot of things back then.”

“Sam, I need him. Or somebody exactly like him.”

“You can’t tell me what this is about, can you?”

“No,” Coalbridge said.

“Is it something to do with the Poet?”

“I wouldn’t ask for him if I didn’t need him.”

Sam took another long drag. The cigarette’s wrapper crackled and browned. She flicked another ash, sat back, breathed out. Frowned. “Were you hoping
I
would talk to him? Is that why you . . . called me?”

“Of course not.” Coalbridge touched her chin, ran his finger along the curve of her cheek.
It wasn’t, was it?
Coalbridge considered for a moment. “Not consciously,” he said. “Will you?”

“Hell, no.”

She punched him in the collarbone, hard enough to sting.

“Understood. All right, all right,” he said. “And I promise that has
nothing
to do with my wanting to get in your pants.” He put his hands around Sam’s waist, drew her up. “Let me convince you.”

He paused. Let her settle back in her chair.

“But it does occur to me,” he said. “Do you think he’s going to resent this? Us?”

“What
us
?” said Sam. “I’m headed back to Huntsville tomorrow, and you’re about to be out there fighting sceeve.”

“I mean, are you going to tell him about
this
?” Coalbridge fumbled for the right words. “You’re still good friends. . . .” He couldn’t find a way to put it.

“Now that you mention it, maybe he should know I fucked his captain, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. Depends. As you point out, I don’t really know the guy.”

“Yet you’re willing to take him away from what he loves and put him through extreme personal turmoil.”

“I’m more worried about you. The planet may not be here soon,” Coalbridge answered. “Not in any recognizable form. I know it seems like we’re losing it. Hell, we
are
losing it. But I plan to win. And the fact is that I don’t speak sceeve and everybody else I know who says they do or who claims to understand the way those fuckers
think
is pretty much full of shit.”

“If Griff says he does, he does.”

“I read his report from the summer, his explanation for the withdrawal, that Depletion stuff, plus his analysis of the Poet broadcasts. He’s confirming things that I thought nobody but me and my crew knew. I’ve seen the bastards up close and personal. There was no good human reason for that withdrawal. They were kicking our ass. And for the past eight years they have
not
been fighting as hard as they can, I’m sure of it. Griff Leher finally gave me a plausible reason why.”

“Yes, I know,” Sam said. “A copy
did
happen to fall into my hands by chance—”

But Coalbridge was lost in his train of thought and not paying attention. “The Depletion is the sceeve version of a massive energy tax. All forces called back to base and their power sources sucked dry. And then that energy directed toward winning a civil war with the Mutualists.”

“I believe Griff suggests it was more like putting down an insurrection.”

“Either way,
that’s
why the invasion stopped, just like Griff says. I know he’s right in my bones. The withdrawal had nothing to do with us. Fits with behavior I’ve seen with my own eyes. Predictable behavior is something I can use to kill more of them!”

He was getting excited thinking about the resource Griff Leher might actually turn out to be. They could win engagements with that kind of intel. To not
have
to go in fast, inflict what damage he could, and then hightail it away like a scared jackrabbit.

He
could finally win!

“Okay, Jeez,” said Sam. “Enough about Griff. He had me and he lost me. You’re welcome to him.” She slid across from her chair and into his lap. “You’ve had your little break, Coalbridge,” she whispered in his ear. “Now take me back into your bedroom.”

“Or lose you forever?” Dumb. Dumbass to quote old movies nobody watched anymore. Even if it had been that old two-d movie that had made him want to join the navy back when he was a kid. Sam obviously didn’t get the reference.

“Lose you forever?” She ran a lacquered fingernail across the sprouting whiskers of his chin. “Got a feeling that’s a given with you and me.” Sam glanced down at her watch. “Happy New Year, Coalbridge,” she said.

Then she kissed him.

1 January 2076

Vicinity of Wolf 359

Sirius Armada Commander Admiral Vercimin Blawfus left wet footprints on the floor as he paced the fleet command deck of his flag vessel and considered his position. He’d ordered the armada to assume a classic half-sphere array with maximum flank alertness on the Sol-bound side of Wolf 359.

Space was large. Planets, even stars, were pinpricks within the vastness.

Space was large, true, yet Blawfus couldn’t help feeling that he occupied a mighty position within it.

He had over ten thousand vessels at his command, and with a standard spread he would be able to approach with a two-AU cone of effect, depending how he had his forces fall out to N-space.

The slow cutting off and closing down of Sol had taken months. He’d first spread his forces in a blockade around the entirety of Sol, keeping a vanguard gathered about him on the Procyon, outbound side of the Orion arm. He’d harassed the humans ever inward toward their system. This had stretched his own concentration very thin, of course, but had proved effective. The humans were putting up a surprisingly effective resistance, and he took some casualties. But he was getting a seventy-percent kill rate on engagements, which was a more than satisfactory trade-off.

When it became clear the human fleet was mostly withdrawn to protect the home system, he’d issued a fleet-wide order to rendezvous at Wolf 359. Via relays and message drones, most vessels had gotten the order. A few were still straggling in.

He would have those stragglers under the dismemberment knives if they didn’t provide a good explanation for their delay.

Blawfus liked nothing better than making a schedule and sticking to it.

For a time, it had seemed all his carefully laid plans must be thrown out the airlock. Blawfus had received orders—very threatening orders—to find and hunt down one of his own.
Or else.

Councilor Gergen hadn’t stated what the “or else” might be, but Blawfus had a fairly good idea. It was the same “or else” that had befallen his predecessor, Korlon Brand. You put yourself to the knives—or we will do it for you.

It was not a threat, but a promise. Gergen was a killer. One did not get on his bad side and live long.

The problem was, just as Ricimer’s benighted letter to Gergen had stated, even if Ricimer were headed toward Sol, space was wide. Stars, much less planets, were grains of salt suspended within vast oceans of emptiness. Gergen was a politician, not a sailor. He might not understand that combing the sector for one vessel was delusional. In any case, one could never say as much to a political chancellor and member of the Civitas Council if one wanted one’s
gid
to remain intact.

The
Guardian of Night
could be practically anywhere. Furthermore, Ricimer’s threat to deliver his weapon to the humans might be a decoy. He might not be in this Sirius sector at all.

And yet. Signs pointed toward Sol. The Mutualist enclaves, those that had been found and destroyed, were all located down the Orion arm, toward Sol and beyond, hidden in nebulae and dark material nearer to the galactic center. And the annoying Poet, the beta-broadcasting traitor whose identity had recently been ascertained, had been caught transmitting to a
human
craft in the end.