The Terran Mandate (13 page)

Honor

Lt. Simmons turned and started walking up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Dekker asked.

She looked back at the slack body of the pilot - his eyes glossed
over in a haze of agony. "I'm not going to stand here and watch
this," she said.

When Dekker looked at her, she could see something behind the
darkness in his eyes fighting to be seen. His conscience was trapped somewhere
behind them, looking back at her. There was nothing she could do to help that
part of him escape. She only hoped he would do it for himself before it was too
late.

"Very well, Lieutenant," he said. "I had expected
you to be stronger."

She leveled her gaze and glared at him. "I am," she
said. Then she turned and walked the rest of the way up the stairs.

Once outside, she turned her face to the sun and let the heat flow
over her, washing away at least some of the darkness she had tried to leave
behind in the basement. Over time, she would forget the pilot staring at her
wide-eyed, pleading with just his look for her to save him. She would forget
that. She would forget the hiss of the chamber bouncing off the walls not quite
smothering his screams. She would forget all that. But she swore she would
never forget what had happened here. Some crimes went against her honor as a
Marine officer. Others went against the Marine Judicial Code. And some crimes
went against the essence of just being human. All three had been committed in
that basement. She would not forget any of them.

She paced towards the battalion's command troop carrier, shaking
her hands as if flinging away an oily residue that refused to come off. When
she reached the carrier, she found Brandt wiping down his sidearm with fresh
oil. As he snapped it back into his holster, he asked, "How's it going in
there?"

She groaned a sigh and shook her head. "It's not right,"
she said.

"Lot of that going around," he said.

"I guess they sent the right man for the job," she said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. The man I just saw will have no problem when it comes
time to shoot the Paladin and drag his body through the MEF compound."

Brandt looked at the ground and then reached into the carrier to
fetch a pack of rations. He broke open one box and handed the other to Lt.
Simmons.

She waved it off. "I'm not hungry."

"You're losing strength." Holding the box out, he said,
"Eat, Marine. That's an order."

She snatched the box from his hand and tore it open without
looking. "Fine."

He let her graze on the dried contents of the package for a moment
and then said, "Don't be too hard on Colonel Dekker there."

"Hmmph."

"We once held the Highlands, did you know that?"

She sat down and leaned against the carrier's front tire.
"Yeah, I know."

"He was the Paladin's Foot Guard back then."

Simmons stopped mid-bite and shifted eyes her towards him.
"What about it?"

"We'd received a report about movement just outside the
Highlands and the Paladin moved in the Cats to take a look. Next thing they
knew, rounds were landing right in the middle of the farmers working the
fields. Terran infantry was headed straight for the Paladin. Dekker moved his
men up to screen the Paladin and once the Terrans saw him guarding the Cats,
they changed course and headed straight for the fields. Started mowing down
farmers as they ran. Shot 'em right in the back."

"What did the Colonel do?"

"He didn't take the bait. Here's the important thing,
though." He sat down next to her. "Command told him to set up a hasty
defense and protect the farmers."

"And what did he do?"

Turning to face her, he lifted his brow and said, "He stayed
with the Cats."

"What happened to the farmers?"

"Yeah, well, the Guard had a full company of infantry with
another coming in right behind. They swept that field clean. Killed an entire
colony block trying to force Dekker's troops to respond."

Simmons gasped. "That's what, 500 people?"

Brandt picked up a sliver of rock and flung it across the ground.
"About that."

"So he just let those people die?"

"Oh, it's worse than that. He let the Terran Guard take the
Highlands. By the time command could get anything organized, the Guard had two brigades
on line." He flung another rock and waited for it so make a splash in the
dirt. "We had more troops back then."

"So what you're telling me is that Colonel Dekker lost the
Highlands and he let the Terran Guard kill 500 colonists in the process."

"No, that's not what I'm telling you."

Simmons reached behind her and tossed the empty box into the
carrier. Running her tongue across the front of her teeth, she asked,
"Then what are you telling me, Captain?"

"Have you ever seen Cats fight infantry up close."

Simmons looked out across the ground, thinking back to the battles
she had fought in or watched from an observation post. "Well, no. They're
usually in the back."

"Yeah. That's because, as tough as they are, infantry can
take one down pretty easily. Up close and personal, all you have to do is clamp
on some good explosive or hook some wires into it and jam it full of electric
current. Blow a knee out and it's not going anywhere. Short it out and nothing
works. Can't even shoot back."

Simmons tilted her head and scoffed. "I've never heard of
anything like that. We brought twelve. We still have twelve."

"That's kind of my point, Lieutenant. While the Terran Guard
was tearing up colonists, Dekker was screening the Paladin so his Cats could
retreat to safety. Once they did that, they stopped the Guard cold. We couldn't
push them off the Highlands, but their attack was done."

"So he sacrificed 500 colonists to save the Cats."

"Think harder, Lieutenant. If he had left the Cats, we would
have still lost the Highlands, and the Cats. It would have been worse."

"What happened after that?"

"Reprimand. Transferred. Demoted. He was a Brigadier General.
Now he's a Colonel. But that's not the thing. He sees it the way you do. He
made a decision, disobeyed orders and 500 people died."

Simmons let out a sigh and stared at the tower. "And we lost
the Highlands."

"And we lost the Highlands."

She stood up, brushed off the front of her trousers and tugged at
the hem of her field utility blouse. "But what does that have to do with
any of this?"

Brandt stood up, leaned in close and jabbed his finger at the
tower. "What he's doing there, Lieutenant, is following orders. Because
that's all he knows how to do anymore."

She turned and looked into his eyes. "That doesn't make it right."

He patted her shoulder and said. "Yeah but try telling him
that."

"I can't be part of this," she said.

He stepped over the the carrier hatch, eased it down and latched
it. Leaning against the hatch, he said, "Me neither. That's why we need to
go find the Paladin."

"I'm not going anywhere with him."

"No. I mean us, Lieutenant. You and me. We need to round up
Bravo One Nine and go find the Paladin ourselves before this gets past the
point where it can't come back."

Simmons grinned. "That's mutiny, you know."

"Negative, Lieutenant. That's a decision."

Hand of Fate

It had been a full day since General
Godfrey had practically handed the Paladin's mercenary pilot to the MEF on a
silver platter. She paced the grounds of the Terran Guard compound, waiting.
She waited for word from Captain Holt to report that Dekker had made contact
with the Paladin. She waited for word from General Lane that his people had
found the Paladin and were bringing him to her. She waited for the sun to track
across the sky as it baked the ground beneath her boots. She waited while her
brigade commander readied the troops to move out in case the MEF couldn't take
care of their own business. All that came back to her, from every direction,
was dead silence. She smacked her fist into the palm of her hand and quickened
her pace, ignoring the growing thirst scratching at the back of her throat.

Her headset beeped and then she heard
the voice of the man leading the patrol she had sent to monitor Dekker's
battalion. "Guard Six, Tumbleweed, over."

"Go Tumbleweed."

"Looks like they're done with the
pilot, General."

"What did you see?"

"They just dragged his body out and
dug a burn trench."

Her brow arched in disbelief. "They
killed him?"

"Looks like it. Hope so for his
sake - they just lit him up."

"Any movement?"

"No ma'am. They're just sitting
there. No coms, either."

"Alright. Maintain contact, advise
if they actually do anything."

"Wilco."

"Guard Six out."

She ripped the headset off and threw it
on the ground, then yanked its cord from the transmitter fastened to her belt.
She stomped on the earpiece with her boot and ground it into the dirt. She
whipped around and marched back to the line of troop carriers stretched out
across the compound. She raised her arm and circled her fist in the air. The
heavy click of switches snapped in the air, followed by the droning hum of
electromagnetic motors spooling up as the carriers came to life. Like an
orchestra tuning before a performance, the sounds drifted through each other,
aching to come together and reach out to the world with their own voice. Men
scurried to unplug heavy black cables that connected the carriers to the
compound's central power station and its towering photovoltaic panels.

She approached a man of short stature
standing quietly in front of the procession. The recessed bridge of his nose,
sagging eyelids that half covered his eyes and small mouth made him look
ordinarily oriental, betraying the brilliant mind of the youngest brigade
commander in the history of the Terran Guard. "General Kim," she
said.

He saluted. "Yes, ma'am," he
said in a voice she could barely hear above the rumbling whine of the carriers.

Snapping a return salute, she said,
"I'm tired of waiting for the MEF to figure out which hand to use and try
to grab their own ass. Get your brigade into march formation. We're
leaving."

He bowed slightly and said, "Very
well, General." Just as he turned to walk away, she grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait a minute." He stopped
mid step and turned back to face her while she surveyed the troop carriers and
tanks of the Second Brigade. "They're all here. You have a full inventory
of vehicles."

"Yes, ma'am. We repaired some and
Colonel Therus agreed to let us borrow the bulk of his armor."

"So the First Brigade is holding
the Highlands without their tanks."

"They still have a few, but he and
I agreed that the General would want a full brigade when she decided to attack
the Paladin."

"And what if the General doesn't
agree, she asked?" He was right of course, but she always enjoyed seeing
just how many moves ahead General Kim could really think.

"I have the elements in question on
warning orders. If the General would prefer they return to the First Brigade, they
can be there before the end of the day." He spoke calmly, as if discussing
a chess move and looked at her with eyes that never moved, but told her it was
a very good thing that he was on her side.

"That won't be necessary, General.
You are correct. I'd take the whole division with me if I could. Carry
on."

He bowed again and said, "Yes
ma'am." He clasped his hands behind his back and walked the entire line,
occasionally stopping to point and give an instruction she couldn't hear as his
troops moved with rapid precision through their preparations. Every movement,
from unplugging and neatly coiling the power cables on spindles attached to the
carriers, to loading troops into the carrier bays, was conducted with an almost
ceremonial grace that came from hours of drilling on even the most mundane
procedures. There wasn't a single act that hadn't been discussed, planned,
practiced and perfected.

It was the precision of the honed
military mind she had been taught to embrace since the day she was born. There
was one reason which justified their existence, and one reason alone, which now
played out before her eyes as it had for her mother and her mother before her.
That the one thing mankind seemed suited for was to conduct war was not merely
accepted; it was embraced, nurtured and molded into a blade that stood between
the Shoahn' and those who had invaded their world. She eyed the lone carrier in
the rear where Shoahn'Fal had been quartered, along with the Old Scrolls. Once
again, there was a real reason for all of this, even if it was just one flicker
left - a flicker that was unlike any other in the universe.

Once again they would fight so that they
shall survive. The thought that there might be something more flickered through
her mind, snuffed out by a spark of pain just behind her eyes that snapped into
her existence, barely noticed, and then was gone.