Stellar storm, p.10
Stellar Storm, page 10
—13—
CALPURNIA CHOWDURY STOOD AT ATTENTION before my desk while she made her request to join the unit. I hid my sigh and waited for her to finish running through her military history, which included a short stint in the Imperial Shield, before she had jumped to the Rangers. She had made the rank of sergeant before the Shutdown, and had been working paramilitary assignments since then, including for the last six months captaining Juliyana’s ship and crew.
And she was wearing her usual super-stretchy coveralls that just happened to emphasize her enhanced physiology. The industrial strength tendons stood out where the well-developed muscles ended and watching them flex in her neck as she spoke was fascinating.
“I’m somewhat familiar with your military record,” I told Calpurnia. “That’s not in dispute, as I’ve seen you in action. But I have reservations about including you in the project.”
Calpurnia’s eyes narrowed. “May I ask why?”
She’d cut her hair short, but the twin, thick golden streaks running down to her ears from the crown of her head were still there—they hadn’t been cosmetic, after all.
“May I be frank?” I said.
“I’d prefer it.”
“Juliyana and Lyth are both part of the unit.”
Calpurnia nodded. “Yeah, Juli told me…” She broke off and laughed. “Oh, sorry, your meaning just clicked in—I was thinking something physical or a lack of some essential skill…but you’re worried about me upsetting them.”
I sat back. “You were very upset when Juliyana went back to Lyth.”
Calpurnia brought a hand up to bracket her chin. It was an oddly masculine posture and I think she had forgotten for a minute that she was supposed to be standing at attention. “I was dark side of the moon upset about it,” she admitted. “But then, Juliyana never really left Lyth, even when she wasn’t with him. Besides, I’ve got my own ship now.”
“I thought the Penthos was Juliyana’s ship?”
“I’m buying it from her, one contract at a time and she gets royalties from my contracts for another five years after that. Woman drives a hell of a bargain. Almost as tough as you.”
“You, sir,” I said.
Calpurnia snapped up straight and dropped her arms. “Yes, sir.”
“I won’t put you in their squad,” I told her. “I don’t care how over it you think you are. I don’t have time to deal with personnel issues, so if something does flare up, you’re the one who walks. Just so we are clear. Clear?”
Calpurnia nodded. “Clear. Sir.”
“Juliyana told you about our mission, then?”
“Actually, it was Lyth, sir.” Calpurnia hesitated. “He thought you could use me.”
I hid my sigh. Again. “Head out, find Major Dalton and report in. He’ll assign you a bunk and give you your training program. You’re a late recruit, Chowdury, but you’re physically ahead of the rest of us, but I expect you to keep up anyway.”
“That won’t be an issue, sir.”
“See that it isn’t. Dismissed.”
Calpurnia actually smiled as she moved out of my command hut.
I was going to have to have a word with Lyth about doing my recruiting for me. But he was two for two, so far, so maybe I should just shut up and accept that he knew as well as I did what sort of people I needed.
Including him and Juliyana.
We settled into the routine of a boot camp base, while I assessed the teams and waited for Eliot Byrne to arrive. Until he returned with some intelligence on the Terran world that was our target I had no intention of moving out of Wynchester.
But that gave me time to sort out the natural abilities of the thirty people in the camp, and figure out possible scenarios, potential squads, and where everyone needed extra training. I’d done exactly this for nearly ten years and sliding back into the camp director role came easily.
Sauli strolled into the camp a week or so after we’d taken Chowdury onboard and tapped on my door. “Captain?”
I grinned. “Only took me a week to get used to Colonel once more. ‘Captain’ sounds odd.” I got up. “You’re back for the next phase of construction?”
“That, too,” Sauli said, moving into the hut.
Wariness touched me. “No, not you, too…” I groaned.
Sauli paused. “Me, too, what?”
“You’re trying to volunteer, aren’t you?”
“There’s no trying involved. I am volunteering.”
“Did Lyth put you up to this?”
“Lyth?”
“How did you hear about the…never mind. I forgot who sleeps in your bed.” I shook my head. “No, Sauli. I’ve got an engineer. You might remember him. Yoan, your son?”
Sauli shrugged. “Now you have two of them. A spare for just in case. I’ll be a grunt otherwise.”
“You have no military training and no specialty that I don’t already have. I’m sorry, Sauli.”
Sauli didn’t look upset. He pushed his hands into his pockets. “Dalton said you’d say no.”
“Dalton told you to come?” I was genuinely surprised. “What the hell was he thinking?”
Sauli didn’t laugh. “He didn’t say, exactly, but I know he was thinking that with me, you’d have the old crew back. The old crew worked, Danny. Captain.” He grimaced. “Colonel.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I have a different crew that works just as well.”
“But they’re still young enough to look up at you.”
“And obey my damned orders,” I growled.
Sauli did grin, this time. “You and I worked together a lot, back in the day. Same with Juliyana and Lyth and Dalton. You’re calling yourself Colonel and running a boot camp out there—” he hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “But it’s not really military, and you don’t have time to build up camaraderie and trust in the units. So you should be using people you already trust.”
I considered him for a long moment. “And am I going to have to have this same conversation with Kristiana in a week?”
Sauli shook his head. “Lyth did warn me about that. She’s staying put. She wants to lay down some groundwork so when you come back everyone will be ready to cheer.”
I thought it was premature to plan out a ticker tape parade just yet.
Sauli added, “I’m still going to get Lyth to put one of those data links in my neck, though.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked him.
Sauli hesitated for the first time since he’d stepped into the room. “Why wouldn’t I?” His tone was cool.
“Because you’ve never been through my training before. You’re about to go through hell. You really want to preserve those memories?”
Sauli laughed shortly. “Bring it on.” His laugh faded, as he added, “I need this, Danny. I’m a spacer, through and through, thanks to you and the Lythion. I was going crazy, dealing with economists and accountants and lawyers…” He shook his head.
“The price of success,” I hazarded.
“Is that why you find a way to stay broke all the time?” Sauli shot back.
I’d have to think about that. “It just worked out that way,” I told Sauli. “Dalton is running logistics. Report to him and brace yourself.”
“Consider me braced, sir.”
And I hadn’t had to prompt him on the ‘sir’. I nodded. “Dismissed.”
I went back to work and it wasn’t until a couple of hours later that I realized I was smiling to myself, still warmly pleased about Sauli joining the team.
Damned if Dalton hadn’t been right. It did feel like old times.
—14—
SAULI WAS OUR LAST RECRUIT. He settled into the routine like he’d done it all his life, although I suspect he had a lot of help from everyone around him, orienting him and bringing him up to date on expectations and rules. That the others were helping him actually pleased me—it was proof they were starting to work together as team.
While the basic training routine felt familiar, in two respects it was very different from my Ranger days.
Because this was a one-time mission and we weren’t commissioned officers, or even genuine military grunts, I chose not to enforce full military rules and regulations. There were too many former civilians spread among the ex-Rangers, all of them volunteers. And absolutely everyone was doing this because they wanted to strike back at the Terrans and get our people back. There was no long-term careerist thinking in any of them.
Bearing down on these people with full military discipline would just make them resentful and uncooperative. So I let a lot of stuff slide, while I focused hard on developing trust and respect across the team, making everyone fit enough to cope with the rigors of the raid, and further developing their expertise and specialized knowledge to meet the needs of the team.
The other major difference between my boot camp days with the Rangers, and this little camp of ours in the middle of farmer’s fields was that normal boot camp didn’t have a critical mission waiting in the wings.
The raid colored everything we did. All our training was built around what Dalton and I thought might be ahead of us. As more details came in about the target world and the terrain we’d be moving through, we could get even more specific in the drills and tutorials.
Mornings before breakfast were always calisthenics in the square, and after breakfast was weapons, unarmed combat and self-defense. In the afternoons, everyone had their own projects and specialties to take care of.
I couldn’t afford to give everyone the evening off, either. After a simple supper, everyone gathered in the common room, including Lyssa and Mace, and Ven put us through a crash course in Terran ideograms and the most commonly used dialect that went along with them.
We had writing contests, spot quizzes and rounds, pitting small teams against each other. Dalton split everyone up into factions – blues, greens, whites, and reds—and kept track of each team’s scores. The scorekeeping developed into a semi-serious rivalry. Dalton put the scoreboard outside the common room door. There was always one or two people consulting the latest scores.
I also began to see people studying ideograms on their pads at mealtime, and downtime, usually with one finger tracing out the shapes while their lips moved silently. For all I knew, they were also studying ideograms after lights out, but that was one of the disciplines I let slide. We didn’t patrol barracks, and we didn’t stop anyone from roaming between beds at night.
I had to bust a few asses over minor stuff that could have become a morale issue—recruits thinking they’d found a way to beat the system and slack off while no one was looking. I couldn’t afford to have anyone milking the job, so they got sent home with our thanks.
Dalton kicked them out at just the right time so that everyone saw them trudging down the farm lane with their packs in hand.
None of the four I cut loose were specialists. They were all ex-Rangers and agreed to join the team because they missed the old days, just like Sauli did. Dalton and I both remembered them as being good soldiers, but Marlee Colton’s head was full of base records and she found remarks on two of their records that showed they had a penchant for taking the easy way whenever they could.
For a few moments I’d wished I’d had Colton to hand when we’d first invited the four to join us.
“How could you know they’d turn out bad?” Dalton asked me when I muttered about it that night. “They’re the type that makes sure senior officers only ever see their eager, cooperative face and we are both more senior than any of them. It didn’t work out. Let it go and move on. Besides, now the squads are even.”
The language factions had become our default squads, because the language contests were naturally building team cooperation, and that give us the structure of the team; four squads, each with a lieutenant reporting directly to Dalton. It didn’t surprise me to learn that Juliyana had one squad and Marlee Colton the other. I was only a little more surprised when Dalton tapped Calpurnia Chowdury to lead the third. It was the fourth squad lieutenant who made me sit down and think about it a bit.
“Sauli?” I breathed, staring at Dalton over the top of my pad, which pinged me for taking too long to identify the ideogram it was displaying. “You’re joking, right?”
Dalton shook his head. “He’s been directing men and teams for years, in his workshops. He’s smart, he’s old enough to not take crap from anyone and he tossed me on my back the other day, in self-defense.”
“I heard about that,” I admitted. Just like a true military bootcamp, this place ran on gossip. “I figured you’d thrown the match for the morale boost or something.”
“I wasn’t holding back,” Dalton replied. “And that locked in my decision. Sauli’s not military, but he’s been around you long enough that he’s soaked up the way you think. He’s the right man for the job.”
I felt a bit winded. “I remember him bailing us up in the corridor of the Lythion, when we accidentally abducted him from Keeler.”
“Bailing us up with an uncharged shriver,” Dalton added. “All spit and hiss.”
“And freckles. He was a kitten.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not anymore.” Dalton plucked the pad from my fingers. “You were done with that, right?” He drew me toward him.
Six days later, Eliot Byrne returned, loaded with data about our target world.
—15—
THE BALL HANGING IN THE middle of the common room tank was blue, green and brown, with white clouds hanging over it.
“Lovely,” someone breathed as the ball circled, showing off her continents and oceans.
“What was the name again?” Dalton asked.
“Hegara,” Eliot Byrne replied. “A little jewel she is, too. Mildly oxygen rich, near standard nitrogen-carbon atmosphere, and not even close to full population. The whole north continent—that big one there with the mountains down the edge—that’s almost untouched, as far as we could tell.”
“Where’s the bulk of the population then?” I asked. I was standing back, letting everyone else crowd in and examine the ball.
“Lyssa, would you mind?” Eliot said.
“Sure, hang on.”
The ball turned and rolled, showing us the southern hemisphere, then Lyssa pulled in the focus, so the ball expanded. The continent was middle sized and had no remarkable features. As it neared the pole, an ice cap covered the landscape.
Byrne pointed to the northern edge of the continent with a long, bony finger. “There, on the coast. Temperate climate, just south of the tropical zones around the equator.”
The view zoomed in even closer. Now we could see a lot of green, wide blue rivers emptying into the ocean, and what looked like a mountain chain cutting across the top of the continent.
“No cities?” I said, when I didn’t find any silver-grey hatching that was the tell-tale spore of human cities. “They don’t build cities?”
“Not on Hegara, at least,” Byrne replied. “Can’t say about anywhere else, over there. The biggest town is on the western side of that peninsula jutting out there—thanks, Lyssa.”
The view closed in once more to show a natural harbor with a man-made barrier enclosing the rounded bay. That, at least, was a human thing, to adapt natural features. The town clung to the curved edges of the harbor with tendrils spreading out across the land. I could see what I presumed were single dwelling houses, among larger buildings whose function I couldn’t begin to guess about. Government? Did they use government the way we did? Law enforcement? Public assembly? There was so much we didn’t know about these people.
Ven would be a useful resource, now.
“Name?” I asked Byrne.
“Gara City.”
“Original,” someone said, with a laugh.
“As original as Badelt City?” I asked.
Silence.
“Okay, you’ve all seen the place we’re going to be dropping in on some time soon,” Dalton said. “Now we have to get down to some serious planning. You’ll hear the details when we’ve finalized everything. Back to work, people.”
Had he read my mind? I was itching to pour over the data and start making decisions. I’d been in a holding pattern for too long.
Lyssa shut off the display, which did more to move everyone on than Dalton’s direction. They broke up and moved out of the common room, talking amongst themselves.
“Squad leaders and specialists, please, Dalton,” I called out. “The Lythion, ten minutes.” The Lythion could be sealed up so not even a smart AI could wriggle in and overhear us. Lyssa had the ability to display almost anything in 3D, which would give us the luxury of pacing out dimensions, exploring landscapes and figuring out tactics to suit.
Dalton nodded.
“Lyssa, you’d better get coffee going,” I said to the air. She wasn’t showing her face. “Maybe some food.” Hard thinking burned up the calories.
“As soon as I heard Eliot Byrne’s ship enter the city, I started prepping,” Lyssa told me. “Everything’s ready.”
*
Lyssa had not been lying about her preparations. A dozen comfortable armchairs with wide, flat arms suitable for resting pads, mugs, and food plates upon, sat in a wide arc facing the area where Lyssa could display any data or images requested of her.
She had rebuilt her usual spacer clothes to display dark grey pants and a simple shirt that was identical to what our teams were wearing. Her hair was pinned at the back of her head the way the people with longer hair had got into the practice of doing, just to keep it out of the way. Not everyone had shorn their hair the way Calpurnia had.
Lyssa had a chair of her own, too, at the far end of the arc, where she could jump up, if needed. She kept the lights bright, but not directly in our eyes and dialed to an orange yellow with no blue light in it.
