The Terran Mandate (17 page)

Call

The words echoed off the walls in the
chamber room. "Skydriver, Skydriver, this is Farmboy. Over." Colonel
Dekker stared at the pilot's equipment arranged on a table set against the
chamber wall. The speaker on the radio he had pulled from the man's shirt
pocket clicked and he heard Jommy's voice repeat the call. "Skydriver, Skydriver,
this is Farmboy. Over."

Dekker grabbed the radio and keyed the
built-in microphone. "Jommy, is that you?"

"Yes sir. Can you hear me? 
Over." Dekker could hear the strain of fear in the boy's voice.

"Yes, Jommy, I can hear you. What's
wrong?  Where's your father?"

"I don't know sir." His voice
warbled. "He was right behind me but then I lost him. I don't think he
made it." Dekker's heart skipped. Made it from what?

"What's happening, Jommy?"
Realizing the boy understood basic radio protocol, he added, "Over."
Routine and procedure wasn't just a formality. It also provided an anchor for a
man's mind when panic was his first instinct. Maybe it was helping Jommy the
same way.

"Th - the Terran Guard sir. They
came to the house. They were ev - everywhere. Over." Dekker heard the
tears breaking.

"That's alright, son, just stop and
remember as best you can. Start from the beginning. Over."

"They came out of nowhere sir. We
heard something in the valley and then we had to hide. They were blowing
everything up. And then they came here and started shooting everybody. Dad told
me to run. So I ran, but he couldn't keep up and they were shooting everybody -
"

Dekker tried to interrupt the boy as his
chatter was running away from him. "Jommy -"

"- and they screamed and fell down.
They kept shooting. Mama's cups. Mama's cups. Mama's cups -" The boy was
hyperventilating, but all Dekker could do was wait. "Unhh. Over."

"Alright Jommy, that's good. That's
a good report Marine. Now, listen to me carefully. Are you listening?
Over."

Jommy struggled to talk between
sniffles. "Y- unh. Yes. Sir. Over."

"I want you to turn your radio off
and then run as far away from Dirt Hill as you can. Run until the sun goes
down. Then, you can stop and call me. Do you understand?  Over."

"Yes sir." Jommy grunted.
"I'll call you after sunset. Farmboy out." The radio clicked and the
light behind the transmit button went dark. Dekker pushed it anyway.

"Run Jommy. Run." He let go of
the button and bowed his head, closing his eyes.

"Run."

Delivery

Lt. Simmons tapped her headset again as
she drove the carrier across the onslaught of ripples in the ground. "Say
again." She squinted at the ground rolling up in front of them as she
strained to hear.

A voice broke through the static, just
audible over the background noise. "- One Alpha, One Charlie overrun. One
Charlie falling back -" An explosion saturated the transmission and then
faded. Static filled the headset for several seconds and Lt. Simmons tapped
finger against it as if she were trying to dislodge the words she strained to
hear. "-Dirt Hill!  Three Alpha, get over there." A squeal rang out
in her headset, causing her to wince. "-Nobody left. Alamo phase line
castle. - " She heard a scream and then nothing but an ocean of hissing -
the raw background noise of the radio carrier wave. Whoever had been
transmitting from the MEF was done. She listened for several minutes more and
then tapped her headset to switch frequencies.

"Two Bravo Delta," she said.
The carrier rattled and rocked as it barreled through a gulley. Playing the
transmissions over in her head, she forgot to compensate with the throttle and
the carrier bolted up the other side. All six wheels left the ground. When the
carrier hit the ground, the frame screeched as the suspension bottomed out.
Something behind her crashed to the floor. She whipped her head around.
"Everybody alright back there?" Some of her Marines were still
asleep; the rest stared back at her with eyes still hidden behind the camoflage
painted on their faces. One of them was looking at the roof.

She turned back around and scanned the
com panel on the floor next to her and winced when she realized she had left
the PA switch on. They had heard everything.

"Two Bravo Delta, Badger Six,"
she said.

Her headset clicked and she heard the
Paladin's voice. "Badger Six, Two Bravo Delta Actual. Authenticate
packrat."

"I don't have your code sets,
Major. Badger is ETA two minutes check point dodgeball. Over."

"Understood. Standing by.
Out."

She eased back on the throttle as the
carrier dipped into another gulley and rolled into a patch of flat dirt and
scrub surrounded by a ring of low-lying hills. She peered into the gathering
night, looking for Major Walker's jumpjet. Out of the corner of her eye, she
caught a glimpse of a red light flashing on and back off. She veered towards
the light and let the carrier's headlights sweep over the jumpjet standing in
the middle of the clearing. She eased the throttle back and disengaged the
drive system, letting the turbine idle so it could charge the batteries and
power the cupola on top in case they were ambushed. She would have preferred
stealthing the vehicle, but with the MEF transmissions and the questions
stacking up faster than answers, she decided to maintain tactical readiness
instead.

"Sergeant d'Vane," she said.

A voice erupted from behind her.
"Yes, Lieutenant."

"Omni sector fire lanes and a
walking element at 200 meters."

"Yes ma'am," d'Vane said,
smacking the release to open the rear hatch of the carrier.

Simmons nudged Shahn'Dra. "Wake up,
we're here." Shahn'Dra jerked her head up and snorted, then stretched her
snout out in front of her and shook her head. She unbuckled her harness and
started to open the hatch when Simmons put a hand on her shoulder. "Wait.
We need to secure our perimeter first." Shahn'Dra leaned forward to stare
through the windshield and started drumming her claws on the Old Scrolls.
Simmons smiled as she unbuckled her own harness and opened the driver side
hatch. As she hopped to the ground, she pointed at Shahn'Dra and said,
"Wait." Shahn'Dra nodded, still drumming her fingers on the case.

Simmons stepped to the back of the
carrier. "All squared away over here?" she asked Sergeant d'Vane.

"Yes ma'am." He swept his hand
over the the hills surrounding the carrier. "I'm setting up a reverse
slope ambush on all four corners with two elements patrolling on the other
side. That way, we have no silhouettes but can still react to anything that
comes our way.

"That's a good plan, Sergeant. Let
me know if anything comes up."

She continued around to the front
passenger hatch and opened it. "Come on out, sweetie," she said.
Shahn'Dra hopped to the ground and started swaying back and forth as she held
the case in front of her.

Simmons led her towards the jumpjet as
Major Walker started limping towards them. He had a carbine slung over one
shoulder and he tried to take long strides despite the limp, but he couldn't
hide it. She stopped and snapped a salute. Walker stopped and swung his arm so
his hand bobbed just in front of his brow before settling into a return salute.
Shahn'Dra bolted towards him and held out the case. Smiling, she said, "I
brought this for you."

Walker ran his hand over the surface of
the case and brushed the blue triangle with his fingertips. "So these are
the Old Scrolls," he mused. "Doesn't look like much. Can you open
it?"

Shahn'Dra's smile faded. "I cannot.
If I could, I would not. That is not why I brought them to you."

"I know," he said, reaching
out to touch her shoulder. "Just drop it on the ground there."
Shahn'Dra hesitated. "Go ahead," he said, smiling. "Drop
it." She stooped down and lay the case on the ground, then patted the
symbol and murmured something in her own language. She stood up and took a step
back when Walker unslung his carbine.

He took a step back, shouldered the
weapon and pointed it at the case. A sharp crack filled the air as he pulled
the trigger. The round glanced off the case and spun off into the darkness. All
three peered at the case, unable to see where the bullet had actually hit it.
"Well, this is going to be harder than I thought," Walker said. He
sat down next to the case and ran his hand over its surface. Simmons and
Shahn'Dra sat across from him as he continued to trace the blue triangle with
his finger.

For the first time since their skirmish
with Second Brigade, Simmons felt the fatigue creeping into her bones and shook
her head to keep it at bay for at least a while longer. "Have you heard
from MEF?" she asked.

Walker grunted. "Not since they did
this," he said, patting the bandage on his wound. "You might say I've
been keeping a low profile."

"From what I heard, they could have
used you tonight." Simmons pulled her knees into her chest and counted the
first stars flickering on the horizon.

"At the compound?" His voice
floated around her, poking at her consciousness, devoid of answers. It didn't
sound like the voice of a man hiding anything, but it didn't reveal everything
he knew, either.

"There was an attack," she
said, puffing her words into the air in front of her to see what they might
catch.

Walker gasped. "What's going on
here?"

"Lane sent Dekker's battalion to
round you up. I was attached to keep an eye on things and make sure he actually
followed through."

"Followed through on what?"

Simmons knitted her brow, still gazing
at the horizon. "They said you shot up the compound, killed some HQ staff
Marines and then took off. If your company had been at the compound, maybe you
could have stopped First Brigade." She stared at him, trying to put him in
a corner. She was tired of bumping into walls in the dark.

Walker tapped the bandage on his leg.
"See this, Lieutenant?" Simmons nodded without looking. "This is
from a 7.62 mm round from an MEF R-51. I can show you the bullet if you want. I
barely made it into my Cat and, yeah, I shot back." She narrowed her eyes,
took a slow breath through her nose and turned away. "If we had been at
MEF," he continued, "then Second Brigade would still have this."
He patted the Old Scrolls and tilted his head. He was waiting for her to ask
him more. She could keep asking him small questions and he could keep giving
her small answers made up one at a time to weave whatever story he needed her
to hear. Her trust would build as his answers nibbled away doubt until she
forgot what the real problem was. She knew what the problem was. And he wasn't
helping.

She leaned in, glaring. "Major
Walker, I have been trained to out-think everybody. You can walk me in circles
all night long and at the end of it, I still have orders. And I have a squad of
highly motivated Marines who just saw their buddies get shot up over this -
whatever the hell it is - who are willing to back them up. Brandt believed in
you. But he's gone. That means it's up to me now."

A wince flashed over Walker's face and
then he smiled. "I'm not walking you in circles. We've both been set up
here. But we do have one thing in common."

"And what's that, Major?"

"Your boss. Because of him, I am
out here with you, alone, unescorted, limping in the darkness and trusting that
you will not carry out your orders to bring me in." He looked towards the
horizon. "Not that those orders really matter now that Godfrey is out in
the open."

"I can't reach Colonel Harris,"
Simmons said. "Not since the First Brigade attacked the compound. Which
brings us back to you not being there when they needed you."

"Seems you're going to have to sort
it out for yourself then, Lieutenant. What's it going to be?"

The urge to end the conversation welled
up inside her. It was time to stand up and call over Sergeant d'Vane to place
the Paladin in custody. But that was as far as her mind could go. After that,
it was just more of the same question. She sighed and twisted her neck, trying to
disperse the tension tightening around her like a fist. She closed her eyes and
grimaced at her own mistake when she finally realized what that question was.

"I need to know what's so important
about that," she said, pointing at the Old Scrolls.

Walker glanced at Shahn'Dra. The girl
knelt next to Simmons and took her hand. She unfurled her antennae and said,
"I will show you."

Reconciliation

"Marine Six, Marine Six, Enforcer
Six Actual, over." As soon as he stopped talking, Dekker's headset clicked
and all he heard was static. "One Six, One Six, Two Six Actual,
over." Dekker rubbed his forehead and lightly stomped his boot on the
ground as more static hissed through his headset. "Three Six, Three Six,
this is Enforcer Battalion Six Actual, over." More static poured out of
his headset. He started wheezing, as if the static was suffocating him.

He heard a pop and then a whine rise up
behind the static. The hollow resonance of a voice trapped in a single sideband
frequency flitted over the whine. Dekker scanned the horizon and caught a wisp
of green shimmer as it danced across the sky. "Sergeant Preston, get over
to the HQ carrier and recalibrate for magnetic impedance. It sounds like the
poles are warbling again." The Marine behind him hoisted his rifle and
slung it over his shoulder before trotting out to the command carrier.

He heard the ghost of a voice struggling
to overcome the effects of Shoahn'Tu's magnetic poles shifting position.  He
peered into the night as if he might reach out and pull in the transmission
trying to reach him. The resonant chatter bounced along the top end of the
radio signal's carrier wave until he made out what he thought was his call
sign. The resonance faded as the voice crept back to the center of the
frequency. His hands tingled when he heard his call sign, still hidden in the
shadows of the sideband carrier wave but clear enough that he knew for certain
somebody was trying to call him.

"Station calling Enforcer Six, repeat
transmission. You are three by two and getting stronger. Repeat transmission,
over." His eyes fluttered as he strained to hear the tone of the caller's
voice while its resonance swept to the lower end and dropped out, leaving the
signal clear enough for him to understand.

"Enforcer Six, Enforcer Six, Badger
Six. Break. Any station Mike Echo Foxtrot, this is Bravo One Nine, do you
read?"

A numb wave flushed through Dekker's
body and his muscles stiffened to the point of aching. His jaw clamped down as
he listened to Lt. Simmons repeat the call. He trotted out to the carrier and
poked his head inside. "Sergeant Preston, can you get a fix on that
signal?"

Still working the controls of the radio
panel as he worked to clean up the signal, Preston answered without turning
around. "I can give you a bearing, sir, but that's about it. The poles are
really dancing."

Dekker pounded his fist on the side of
the carrier. "God dammit." He heard himself seething and sucked in a
breath, forcing himself to talk in a normal tone. "What can you tell me,
Sergeant?"

Sergeant Preston nudged a knob on the
panel. "Sector between bearing three two two and three five five
sir."

Dekker grinded his teeth for a moment
and smacked the carrier with the palm of his hand. "Good deal, Sergeant.
Carry on." He scanned the closest group of the battalion's carriers and
spotted a group of Marines huddled around the sloping resin cloth of their
tents. He marched towards them, stretching his neck and forcing his breath in
even draws that made his chest ache.

"Officer on deck!" one of them
called out. They all stood up and fixed themselves in place like posts in
cement.

"Who's ranking here?" Dekker
blurted out.

"Corporal Jenkins, sir, Charlie
three."

"Alright, Corporal, assemble your
section and come with me. Hurry up."

"Sir!" The corporal and his
six Marines scrambled to fish rifles, web belts, harnesses and helmets from
their tents and assembled into a single line facing Dekker. He fished a compass
from his pocket and oriented it so the needle lined up with the north index.

He yelled to Preston, "What's my
index, Sergeant?"

"North plus one three and drifting,
sir."

Dekker twisted the bezel on his compass
so the needle now pointed to the correct bearing for the shifting pole. He
lined up another marker on the bearing for the signal from Lt. Simmons's signal
and said, "Let's go." Leading his six Marines into the darkness, he
tapped his headset and listened. A minute later, he heard her voice as clear as
if she were standing next to him. Scanning the horizon, he caught a flash of
light skimming the ground, groping through the darkness.

"Barrier line, right here,"
Dekker said. The detail fanned out into two sections on either side of him and
unslung their weapons. As the lights from the approaching carrier drew closer,
Dekker huffed his breath out in measured intervals, as if he were already
beating her with his bare fists. The lights swept across the ground and pitched
up, flashing directly into his eyes as the carrier pitched up out of a gulley.
The vehicle was just close enough for him to hear the turbine as it spooled
down to idle. The carrier slowed and rolled towards him, as if driven by an
errant child caught coming home after curfew. When it was within ten meters, it
squealed to a stop.

Out of the corner of his eye, he checked
the men in his detail and saw all six barrels pointed straight at the carrier.
The front hatches opened. Lt. Simmons hopped to the ground and walked to the
front of the vehicle, then knelt down and laced her hands over her head. A
vision of his boot flying into her face flashed through his mind. His anger
ebbed and a dull ache set in when he realized that he might actually have to
shoot her for desertion. She had returned. She had surrendered. The thought of
executing an officer who did not resist the consequences of what she had done
caught him by surprise. The notion that it might be avoided crept into his mind
and clutched at him until he realized he didn't want to.

As he watched her staring at the ground
in front of her, the rear hatch swung open and the Marines of Bravo One Nine
stepped forward with their weapons raised over their heads. They fanned out on
either side of her and stood facing Dekker and his detail. They all wore black
camo paint and most had blood and dirt on their uniforms. Even with the camo,
he could see fatigue etched into the faces like fissures. They all looked past
him to a place that they had all seen but didn't talk about because they didn't
have to, a look that was reborn with every battle and faded with time
afterwards.

Dekker stepped forward to stand in front
of Lt. Simmons. "Stand up, Lieutenant." As she rose to her feet and
lifted her head, he could see the pale expanse of fear on her face - but it
wasn't fear of him or anything that might happen to her by his hand. She knew
something. "Report."

She let her hands down by her side and
took a wheezing breath. "Major Walker sends his regards, sir, and has
asked that I brief you on his request."

Dekker's mind raced. "You found the
Paladin?"

"Yes, sir."

Dekker's mouth opened just enough to let
out a whisper of a sigh. "What happened to you?" he asked, pointing
at a patch of blood on her uniform.

"We ran into the Second
Brigade." Her voice was distant, as if she were waiting for him to ask the
right question and that finding the Paladin and engaging with the Terran Guard
were distractions, notions of things to be discussed when there was nothing
else to talk about.

Dekker looked over his shoulder and said
to his detail, "You men stand at ease." The Marines behind him
glanced at each other and then Corporal Jenkins stepped out and turned to face
his section.

"Ordaaaare -" he paused as his
Marines raised their weapons and smacked the barrels with the flat of their
hands. "Hyuh." Almost in unison, they swung their rifles to their
sides and jammed the butt ends into the dirt, holding their weapons straight
along their sides. Corporal Jenkins turned back around to face Dekker and
executed the same move with his own rifle, then stood as still as a slab of
granite.

Dekker wanted to smile. They were
showing off in front of the specops Marines of Bravo One Nine while reminding
everyone there, including himself, that they were ready to stand and do the
exact same thing Bravo One Nine had done. The Second Brigade would have to
contend with them, too.

"Corporal Jenkins, take these men
back to camp and get them fed and refitted." He turned back to face
Simmons and her men, still holding their rifles over their heads. "If you
fellas don't mind slumming with standard issue." They glanced at each
other and then looked at Simmons. She nodded once and they lowered their
weapons and trudged to join Corporal Jenkin's detail.

As they headed back towards the
battalion carriers, Jenkins said, "You keep close to us now. There's
snakes and stuff out here in the dark and we wouldn't want y'all to get
bit." Somebody laughed. The sound swam through the air and infused Dekker
like an elixir that gave him one moment where it was the only sound he had ever
heard and the world was but a dream that promised to fade away. And then it was
gone.

Turning back to Simmons, he shuddered
when he realized she was standing alone. "Where's Brandt?" he asked.

Simmons shook her head. "I'm sorry
sir." The world came back in a thunderclap of dead silence. The night air
seeped through his uniform and clawed at his bare skin. Dekker too often
followed the whims of passion. He knew that. Brandt had always been his
stanchion of common sense, keeping him squared away when his ardor got the best
of him. What would Brandt say right now?  The closest answer he had to that
question was standing in front of him, fighting too hard to hide her own fear.

"Brandt was right about you,"
he said. "You push too hard too long. You need to know when to stop and
breathe." He waited for her to bite back with a subtle rebuke that flirted
with the line between moxie and insubordination.

Instead, she said, "I know. There's
a lot we need to discuss, Colonel. I hope you'll listen."

Dekker reared back and watched her
through the corner of his eye. Something had changed and he wasn't sure he
wanted to know why. "Let's go, then," he said. "I'll
drive."

As he stepped towards the driver's
hatch, she put up her hand and said, "Wait. There's something I need to
show you first."

He eased back. "Alright." He
tracked her every move as she stepped to the passenger side of the carrier and
opened the hatch. He saw the antennae first, floating in the air for just a
moment before her head poked out from behind the door. The Shoahn' girl paused,
staring straight at him.

"It's alright, sweetie, we need to
tell him," Simmons said.

Shahn'Dra eased out of the carrier and
stood next to Simmons, glancing first at him, then at Simmons, and then
flicking her head away to look at the horizon. Dekker stood frozen in place,
unable to move. He knew he was looking at a Shoahn', but his mind refused to
let the reality catch up to what his eyes were telling him. They were extinct.
They were gone. They didn't exist anymore.

She looked at him. She took a step
forward, her eyes fixed on his. A knot of loneliness emerged in his heart and
gnawed into his chest as she walked closer. It wasn't that he could see into
her eyes or through them, or even past them and into her soul, as much as he
fell through them and found himself afloat in an ocean of loneliness that
wouldn't let him hide any longer. She ran up to him.

"I'm sorry," she wailed.
"It's forbidden." She wrapped her arms around him and buried her head
in his chest. "But please help me," she cried. A child, lost in the
same ocean, reached out to him and he understood everything she was, more than
if they had spent a lifetime talking about it.

He held her close as her claws brushed
along his back. "It's alright," he said. "I miss him too."