Wings of the Magpie: Space Operettas (5 page)

“Negative, Marine,” responded Gunny coldly. “The mission’s not over. You need to blow this rig, and we need the Roundabout to get back home.”

“Hellfire, Gunny,” shouted Lawrence, anger overwhelming and displacing the sadness in her eyes. “I’m not going to let her die.”

“Stand down, Marine,” Gunny commanded as she stood and turned to face Lawrence. Although dwarfed by Gunny’s fighting suit, Lawrence didn’t back down. She was defiant, her face contorted by sorrow and rage.

“Gunny, Lawrence,” I interrupted, glancing over at Gunny’s impromptu barricade of fighting suit parts and broken Grummands. “Cut it out. We’re down two Marines and three fighting suits, right? Without the suits, the Roundabout’s not going to do some of us a damn bit of good anyway. I’ll call home for a shuttle. Lawrence, we need you here to blow this thing. Let Emerald take Mills back to the boat. The four of us and the remaining Grummand can mop up.”

Gunny looked around, surmising the situation. “Emerald’s suit’s damaged,” she said.

“She can take mine,” I answered. “I’ll wear hers if Poynter can get it running again. Besides, it looks like we got all the bad guys, anyway.”

“Fine,” growled Gunny. “Do it.” Without hesitation, I started to strip out of my fighting suit, preparing to hand it over to Emerald.

***

We watched as the liftshaft bearing Emerald, Mills, and the Grummand that carried her sank into the darkness and returned again unladen, then waited breathlessly until Emerald radioed back that they had reached the Roundabout without incident. While we waited, Poynter set to work on the fighting suits, cobbling together a working one from the remains of the three damaged suits. As she wrenched and shaped, I glanced upward towards the Transplast dome, noticing that the
Tiptree
and the
Russ
were both visible amid the stars above us, a Terran fingerprint evident even on this alien worldship. I felt reassured, even after the loss of Pax and in spite of Mills’s grievous injuries, knowing that soon we would make our way to the Worldship’s reactor core, where we would destroy this damnable enemy craft and finally return to the comforts of home. I tuned in to the
Tiptree
’s Vat-Brains with my Comms unit and updated them as to our situation, informing them that the Roundabout was on its way back and requesting a shuttle. As I waited for final confirmation from the Vat-Brains, I considered offering to buy my comrades the first round once we made it back to a planet with a halfway decent pub.

But that thought came too soon. From behind the Badger barricade, the largest Badger I’d ever seen leapt into the air, screaming defiantly. He wore the tattered remains of a leather uniform, his sharp yellow teeth glistened in his too-red maw, and his yellow eyes looked as if they’d not only seen hell, but had returned to tell the tale. In his paw he held a small electronic device, which he triggered even as Gunny shot him down.

Outside, a hundred rockets erupted from hardpoints covering the worldship’s surface, and began to silently scream across space towards the two Terran warships. I transmitted “Incoming missiles. Take evasive action. Take evasive action,” but the connection wasn’t clear. What had been a clean signal was now jammed. Was it the Badger rockets? For five minutes we stood there watching as the missiles streaked across the starlit sky, then felt our hearts crumble as they impacted against our warships, a hundred nuclear blasts, brighter than a sun.

“Oh god,” said Gunny, as she sat down holding her helmeted head in her hands.

“No!” screamed Lawrence, throwing up her hands as if they could block the brightness.

It’s going to be a long walk home after all
, I thought, afraid to put my horrifying thoughts to voice. I hoped to wake up at any minute from my nightmare, but no relief came, so instead, I wept. All of us wept.

***

Hours passed with nothing but silence occasionally interrupted by bursts of static coming through my Comms implant. We were truly alone, adrift on the crippled alien Worldship. Eventually, we left the observation lounge, leaving our fighting suits behind, feeling disconnected, hopeless, like ghosts. Gunny led, taking point, followed by Poynter, Lawrence, and me. Our remaining Grummand followed, taking up the rear. We carried our zapguns, and Lawrence carried her demolitions pack, but we left the heavy plasma rifles and other gear behind. Our hearts were no longer in our mission. We boarded the liftshaft platform and descended into the depths of the Badger worldship, towards the warrens, and beyond, the reactor core. Although I wondered what we’d do once we’d arrived, I walked along in silence, in the unquestioning manner of a Marine.

What felt like centuries passed as we descended through unfathomable darkness and bitter cold only occasionally lit by tiny electronic eyes. We passed through doubt, through fear, through uncertainty and dread. Finally, the platform came to a stop. We had reached the bottom, the warrens. We stepped forward, ambivalent to our fates, pressing on only through the strength of training and the pride of service.

The corridor opened into a room with vaulting cathedral ceilings, huge and hollow and sacred. Easily a thousand Badgers filled the chamber, clustered around, Badgers of every size, of every shape, of every color. Some held primitive weapons, clubs and blades. Others clutched their young against them, shielding them with their furry arms. All looked terrified. Worldship. Warrens. These words, once abstract, finally made sense.

Gunny raised her zapgun. She grimaced, her teeth flecked with blood, her eyes red with anger. She aimed at the forehead of the closest Badger, small and naked, clutching a cub, an infant, in her arms. Another Badger, a child, hid behind her. “Murderous beast!” shouted Gunny. Behind her, Lawrence raised her zapgun as well, and began sweeping the crowd, scanning for targets of opportunity. The Grummand, likewise, raised its plasma cannon.

As I looked from Gunny to the Badger to the cubs, I thought of my own daughter. I imagined her scent, her infant lips upon my breast, her contented coos. I couldn’t let Gunny do it. “Enough, Gunny,” I tried to shout, but only a croaking whisper came out, “Please, please don’t.”

Gunny turned, then pointed her weapon at my face. “What was that, Marine,” she barked, “what did you say?”

Before I could respond, Poynter spoke up. “She said no. She said stop.”

“I should kill you both,” she yelled, gesturing wildly, pointing her zapgun first in my face and then in Poynter’s. “Kill you for treason. We have a mission. You took an oath. Semper Fideles. You’re Marines, act like it.”

“No, Gunny,” said Poynter. Her voice wavered, cracked. “Hasn’t there been enough killing today? What’s it going to solve?”

“The mission’s over, Gunny,” I said. “The
Tiptree
is gone. There’s no way home. The rules have changed. We blow this ship and what? Walk home? This is it.”

Gunny looked around, first at Poynter’s face, then mine, then over to Lawrence. Gunny saw the fatigue in our eyes, the battle-weariness, the exhaustion. She looked into the faces of the Badgers, women and children all.

Gunny looked down at the zapgun in her hand, then up at me, then back to the zapgun. “Dammit!” shouted Gunny, throwing her zapgun to the floor. She dropped her hand to her side, cast her eyes towards the ground.

“Gunny,” I said, touching her shoulder. “We only win by being human.” I put my arms around her, held her close, listened to her breathing, her heartbeat.

“I’ve been a soldier forever, Magpie,” said Gunny. “What if I don’t know how?”

“Learn.” I felt a tugging on my coverall, and glanced down to see the little Badger that had been hiding behind her mother. In one of her hands she held a toy, a bit of stuffed cloth and leather, a doll. She smiled up at me, teeth sharp, but grinning. The little Badger grasped my hand, her paw was warm, comforting. I looked around at my exhausted battle-sisters, meeting each woman’s eyes in turn.

“Yeah,” said Gunny. “I guess you’re right.” She turned to the Grummand. “Stand down,” she ordered.

That was when the little Badger sank its jagged teeth into my wrist. Immediately, I screamed in pain. The next few moments passed in a slow-motion blur, still images strobe-lit with zapgun fire. I discharged my sidearm point-blank into the creature’s face, knocking its tiny smoking carcass to the deck, then watched as Lawrence fell, the side of her head caved in by a Badger’s bludgeon. Gunny dived for her weapon, grabbed it and Lawrence’s in a single motion, and came up firing, two-handed. Poynter dropped to one knee, downing first one charging Badger with a precise zapgun blast, then another. The Grummand cut loose with its plasma cannon, disintegrating clusters of advancing badgers a dozen at a time with glassgreen bursts of energy.

“Pull back! pull back!” screamed Gunny, and somehow, though the rapacious horde of Badgers closed in, we managed to press our way back into the liftshaft corridor and into the liftshaft itself, the Grummand providing covering fire as we retreated.

Once the liftshaft’s doors slammed shut, isolating us from the Badgers, our ascent back towards the observation deck began. Gunny bound my bleeding hand, saying, “In the future, Magpie, remind me not to take your advice.”

Poynter sat at the Grummand’s feet, nervously scraping carbon away from the barrel of her zapgun. “Cripes, how could we have been so stupid?”

“We’re not getting out of this alive, are we?” I asked, my voice dry, crumbling.

Gunny bit her lower lip pensively, then reached into the breast pocket of her coverall and fished out a somewhat bent cigar. “We’re alive now,” she said. “And we’re still Marines. We’ll suit back up, reload, and head back down there to show those mangy bastards what’s for. Semper Fi, Marines.”

“Semper Fi,” echoed Poynter, her voice weak with exhaustion. The two women, my battle-sisters, both looked at me expectantly.

“Semper Fi,” I said, in as strong a voice as I could muster. I met their eyes, feeling a wave of pride, of honor, of duty sweeping through me. “Always faithful,” I continued, “faithful to our fallen sisters, to Terra, and the Corps.”

Tech Support

Hello, Technical Support Services? Yes, this is Doctor Sabot, in lab number three-three-seven-oh-five, concourse AA-thirty-five B. Who am I speaking to? Ah, Cogswell, I thought I recognized your voice. It’s about this new sweeper unit. It appears to be on the fritz. What is it doing? Well, it’s not sweeping, for one. I’ve got two broken test tubes on my floor and it’s ignoring both of them. In addition, it keeps making a strange noise, sort of a wheezing, sniveling sound. It’s rather distracting, disrupting my work. It’s also been waving its forelimbs at me, chattering, pacing to and fro, and refusing, flat out refusing, to do its job and sweep up my workspace.

Yes, of course I’ve gone down the list, tried all the usual troubleshooting tips. I’ve shouted at it, I’ve offered it extra fuel, I’ve even tried ignoring it. No, nothing does the trick. It either sits in the middle of my floor, or wanders around in circles, gurgling and moping along as it goes. Sure, occasionally it picks up its tools, its broom and dustpan, but then it just shrugs and sets them back down again. It’s getting in my way and it’s wasting my precious research time.

What’s that, Cogswell? Sounds like a case for an applied technology solution? What’s that supposed to mean? Oh, you want me to try kicking it. Kicking it? That’s preposterous, how in the name of the galaxy is kicking the confounded thing going to make a lick of difference? Besides, shouldn’t interacting with this thing be your job? Don’t you have specialized tools, behavior modification programs, ways of dealing with these units when they grow recalcitrant?

Oh, I see, that long? That many? Oh, my. Nothing sooner than two cycles? I see. Sigh. All right. I’ll try kicking it. Does it matter which foot I use?

That’s no reason to get hostile. Yes, of course, my choice of foot doesn’t matter. I’ll do it, but I’ll have you know that I abhor physical violence. Violence solves nothing. No, I’m not saying that it’s sentient; it’s the principle of the thing. All right, no reason to lecture, I’ll kick it. Hold on.

Well, I did it. I kicked it. Yes, right in its backside. No, it’s not sweeping. Of course not, I told you that wouldn’t work. What’s it doing? It’s cowering in a corner, quivering, that’s what it’s doing. It’s making a horrible noise, yes, worse than before, and it appears that its visual sensors have sprung a leak. No, not oil, it’s something clear. Disgusting.

Yes, it is one of the smaller units. Oh, I don’t know, about half-sized. I don’t see why that should make any difference. I specially requested one of the smaller ones so that it could better reach under my worktables. Why, are the small ones more prone to malfunction or something? Ah, I understand; the small ones are newer models with a less developed sense of politesse. I could see where that could lead to all sorts of problems. Why haven’t we worked out all the bugs?

Oh, that’s Rossum’s department. Well, that makes perfect sense, then. Rossum couldn’t solve a quadratic equation if he had the answers sitting in front of him. You’d think, in the amount of time we’ve been holding this planet, someone would have come up with a better solution than these biologicals for day to day drudgery. Yes, I know they’re native to the place, I know they’re cheap to maintain, and that they breed quickly, but still. Disgusting creatures, inferior all the way.

So, you’ll send over a replacement? That soon? Wonderful. Yes, a mature one would be fine, anything so long as this clutter gets cleaned up. What, pray tell, am I supposed to do with the broken one? You’ll send over a disposal crew? That’s fine, I was afraid I was going to have to take care of it myself. It’s getting so an android can’t get any work done around here at all.