Earth 2788

  “It’s not like Mabelle to just lie there like that,” said one of the scientists. “She always comes to say hello and beg for an extra treat. She’s making these odd squeaking noises too. Do you think she’s ill?”

  At this point, the small furry creature stood up, revealing what was underneath her.

  “I think there’s a 100 per cent probability Mabelle has had babies,” said Leveque.

  I heard Commander Stone’s laughter join with mine, and turned to see that she and her husband had come to stand next to me.

  “It’s been a pleasure serving with you, sir,” said Leveque. “You haven’t changed your mind about retiring?”

  I’d been asked that question a lot lately, but never by Leveque. My Threat team leader was a tactical expert, and had waited until now to ask me about my retirement plans, because he knew this would be my weakest moment. I’d spent a long time living and working with the people laughing at the vid clips. I was feeling emotional and it was very tempting to say that yes, I’d changed my mind. I could accept another Planet First command, keep a lot of my officers together, move on to another world, but …

  I shook my head. “It’s time to step down.”

  The next vid clip was of an outside view of the base, obviously taken by one of the external surveillance cameras. It showed one of the large freight portals we used to portal armoured sleds out to collect samples from distant locations.

  Drago’s recorded voice started speaking. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any vid coverage from his aircraft for this. The vid bee attached to its nose had been eaten.

  “I can see one of the flying lizards hovering just clear of the trees. It looks like a very small one. Well, relatively small. Maybe a third the size of an armoured car. If I shoot that one, it should fall on open ground. I’ll be able to collect the body with a lift beam, and bring it back to base.”

  “No!” shouted the real Drago. “What unspeakable person sneaked this into the vid sequence?”

  “The unspeakable person was me!” called the voice of Drago’s deputy, Captain Marlise Weldon.

  “Well, take it out right now, Captain. That’s an order!”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late to make changes, sir,” said Marlise, in an unconvincingly regretful voice. “The entire sequence has been viewed and approved by the Colonel.”

  Drago groaned. “Please, someone have mercy and shoot me. I don’t …”

  The end of his sentence was drowned out by his own recorded voice. “Commencing my attack run now, and …”

  There was a weird, high-pitched shriek, followed by Drago’s voice shouting. “Oh chaos! The lizards aren’t loners after all. This one’s called its friends for help.”

  My own voice was speaking now. “Get out of there fast, Major.”

  “Leaving as fast as possible, sir, but there’s a whole mob chasing me, at least twenty of the largest ones. Even if I leave them well behind, there’s a chance they can follow me by scent. I can’t risk leading them all back to base.”

  I felt my recorded voice sounded impressively calm. The way I remembered this I’d been starting to panic. We’d lost an armoured car to just one of these lizards, so twenty of them … “We’ll activate peripheral freight portal 3 for you, Major. Location should be appearing on your main display now. Fly through that to take a shortcut home, and you should definitely shake off your hostiles.”

  “Banking to head for portal now.” There was a short pause before Drago spoke again. “Eighty seconds from portal. Chaos take it, those lizards are fast. They’re losing ground at the moment, but I’ll have to slow to a crawl to fly through the portal. I might get a fighter through at speed, but this is a combination transport so it’s a really tight fit. Shut down the portal connection the second I’m through, because they’ll be very close behind me.”

  “We’ll be ready to shut down the portal, Major,” I said, “and we’re sending out a reception committee in case any lizards make it through with you.”

  The image on the wall showed impact suit clad figures running out to man the massive base laser cannons. The big freight portal was active now, lights flashing.

  “Thirty seconds to portal,” said Drago, “and … Oh nuke! The ones chasing me must still be calling for assistance, because there’s more coming from ahead, blocking my route to the portal. Some closing from the sides too. I’ll have to try and shoot my way through the ones ahead to reach the portal.”

  My voice wasn’t saying anything now, because there was nothing helpful I could say. The vid images showed the laser cannons had swung round to aim at the portal.

  “Firing now,” said Drago.

  There was a period where we couldn’t hear anything except strange thumps and rending noises. This was the point where the vid bee got eaten. For a minute there, we’d thought Drago had been eaten as well.

  Finally, Drago’s voice gasped. “Coming through. Lost lateral thrusters. Got a passenger.”

  An aircraft flew in through the portal and slid across the ground at high speed. Well, most of an aircraft. Part of the left side had ripped off against the edge of the portal, and a giant lizard was hanging on to the right side, gouging holes with a combination of teeth and claws. The portal exploded in a shower of sparks, just as the lizard lost its grip, went tumbling sideways, and was instantly blasted to pieces by the base laser cannons.

  Loud cheers rang round the dome as the vid clip ended.

  “It’s true what everyone says,” called out Marlise Weldon. “Drago really is irresistibly handsome. At least, he’s irresistibly handsome to giant flying lizards!”

  “Have mercy,” pleaded Drago. “Start the next vid clip.”

  The next vid clip duly started, but my mind was still on the lizards. We’d had to go for global extermination in the end, because the nightmare things could migrate between continents. Global extermination was always a last resort because of the potential ecological consequences, but it was that or abandon K21228.

  “I still can’t believe Drago got that aircraft through the portal, let alone survived uninjured,” muttered Nia Stone from next to me. “I’ve tried it myself on a simulator twenty times. Even with the variable wings fully swept back, the aircraft barely fits through by itself, and with the lizard clinging to one side …”

  “Drago had to collide with one side of the portal or the other,” said Leveque. “The weight of the lizard was already spinning his aircraft to that side and he had no lateral thrusters to correct the spin. The natural instinct would be to hit the lizard into the side of the portal, try to kill it or at least make it let go, but the impact would spin the aircraft even further so he wouldn’t make it through the portal.”

  Leveque shrugged. “Drago had to fight his instinct, and deliberately hit the other side of the portal, so losing his aircraft wing would straighten his angle of flight, and the cockpit would make it through the portal intact. If he got it right, his impact suit would protect him in the crash landing, but the margin for error was impossibly small.”

  My lookup chimed. I answered the call, but half the crowd was still shouting out teasing remarks aimed at Drago. I could see the head and shoulders of a Major on the screen, but I didn’t recognize the man, and I couldn’t hear a word he was saying.

  I headed out of the nearest door, and there was sudden quiet as it closed behind me. Planet First domes were built with reinforced walls to defend against hostile wildlife, so they blocked the sound of even the loudest party.

  “Sorry, Major,” I said. “It was very noisy in there. What did you say?”

  “General Staff Central Command Support,” said the Major. “General May sends his compliments and asks if it’s convenient to talk to you.”

  I blinked. It wasn’t just that this was the third General talking to me in one day. I’d never had any contact with General May before, and why would a member of the General Staff be calling me anyway?

  “It’s convenient,” I said.

  Part III

&n
bsp; “Transferring the call now,” said the Major.

  A moment later, a face appeared on my lookup screen. If anything, this General was even older than me. If he was calling to try and talk me out of retiring, then he might not accept my age as a good reason.

  “Colonel Torrek,” he said, “I was fascinated to read the notes you attached to the personnel record of Major Drago Tell Dramis.”

  I wasn’t sure what I’d expected this call to be about, but it certainly wasn’t that! “You mean the notes marked for the attention of his next commanding officer?”

  “That’s right,” said General May. “I’m particularly intrigued by the part where you say that some details are difficult to explain in a report and suggest his future commanding officer calls you to discuss them.”

  I hesitated. “I’m not clear how you came to read the notes, sir.”

  “Part of my duties involves monitoring the career progression of certain officers,” said General May. “Major Drago Tell Dramis has had an extremely interesting career progression. Officers usually work their way up the ranks of the Military, however Drago Tell Dramis manages to progress both up and down. If it was humanly possible, I expect he’d go sideways as well.”

  I gave the obligatory polite smile in response to a senior officer making a joke, but didn’t say a word. I still wasn’t sure what was going on here.

  “You seem to have stabilized him a little,” added the General, “because he’s held the rank of Major for nearly two years now. I even had hopes you’d manage to promote him to Commander, but I see from your notes that you were deliberately avoiding doing that.”

  He gave me an expectant look, and I felt I had to say something. “Judging from his history, I thought he’d come up with a creative way to force me to demote him again. I’ve been following the alternative tactic of giving him the post of a Commander, but not the rank. May I ask why you’re monitoring his career, sir?”

  “It started with an incident during the comet blockade on Hera,” said General May. “You’re familiar with the events there?”

  “To a certain extent.”

  “The smaller incoming comet debris was easily destroyed by fighters, but the comet core itself was heading straight for the inhabited continent of Hera. Most of the population had been evacuated, but a few thousand had stubbornly refused to leave. If the comet core struck the inhabited continent then it would kill those people, and quite probably leave that area of the planet uninhabitable in future. The comet core was coming in at an angle that meant the Hera solar array couldn’t be used against it, so we sent every fighter team assigned to the blockade to try to destroy it with one huge combined missile attack. The comet core exploded, but one large fragment survived the attack and was still on course for the inhabited continent.”

  He paused. “The fighters were out of missiles, but Lieutenant Tell Dramis’s fighter collided with the comet fragment, changing its course just enough for it to pass within range of the Hera solar array, which was then able to destroy it. Lieutenant Tell Dramis claimed this collision was a complete accident.”

  “He’s still claiming that, sir,” I said.

  “Do you believe him, Colonel?”

  “No, sir. I don’t. I’ve just been watching a vid of the man perform an absolutely impossible feat of flying. Every pilot in the base has tried duplicating it in a simulator, including me. It was hardly surprising I couldn’t do it, I’m horribly out of practice, but all the other fighter pilots took several attempts before they could even get close to making it. I can’t believe the same man ever flew straight into a rock by accident.”

  “You’ll understand that what happened at Hera attracted the attention of higher command. Lieutenant Tell Dramis was promoted, and his personnel record flagged for special monitoring.” General May frowned. “You appear to disapprove of that, Colonel Torrek. I’d like you to speak your thoughts freely.”

  “Exactly how freely would you like me to speak, sir?” I asked.

  “Would it help if I assure you I was not involved in the decisions made after Hera, and this conversation will remain totally private between the two of us?”

  I gave in. I’d been wanting to say this to someone, and given I was retiring … “Drago’s promotion was badly mishandled, sir. Anyone making a unique contribution that helps resolve a critical situation, whether that’s an idea that no one else could have suggested or an action that no one else could have performed, is rewarded with a promotion. Everyone understands that. The problem was that Drago wasn’t promoted to Captain, but straight to Major.”

  “Promoting him to Captain would have been meaningless,” said General May. “Lieutenant isn’t a real rank. It’s a label saying you’ve just graduated the Military Academy. Everyone who isn’t completely incompetent will get promoted to Captain after the end of their six month active service acclimatization period.”

  “I can see that, sir, but it would still have been better to be creative about it, make an excuse to delay giving Drago his extra promotion until after he’d made the natural progression to Captain, rather than having him jump over the rank of Captain entirely. With anyone else, it probably wouldn’t have mattered, but there was an extra factor in Drago’s case that made it a really bad idea.”

  “Please explain the extra factor to me, Colonel,” said General May.

  I sighed. “I should explain I have personal connections to his family.”

  “I’m perfectly aware of that, Colonel. It’s why I arranged for Major Tell Dramis to be posted to your command. I’m not clear about your exact relationship, frankly I find Betan family relationships deeply confusing, but I hoped your inside knowledge would help you deal with him.”

  “Oh.” I’d thought Drago’s team arriving on K21228 two years ago had been random chance, but … “Yes, given triad marriages are common, Betan relationships can get confusing, especially when there’s divorce and re-marriage involved. They have several hundred Betan dialect terms to describe all the possible relationships.”

  I smiled. “Personally, I always took the easy way out, and called someone cousin rather than risk using the wrong term. The key thing to remember is that all three members of a triad marriage are both legally and culturally regarded as parents of any children, regardless of the actual genetic relationship. This means you can end up in the situation where, for example, first cousins have no genetic relationship at all. The Betan clans keep detailed family trees with full genetic data so it’s clear which family members are free to marry each other.”

  “I see,” said General May, in the voice of someone who was still totally confused.

  “Anyway, the relationship between Drago and myself is one of the simpler ones. There’s no genetic link between us, but he’s my great-nephew by triad marriage. That gives me certain advantages in dealing with him. I’m not just his commanding officer, but a senior member of his family, and nearly 80 years old. That combination puts immense Betan cultural pressure on Drago to treat me with the deepest respect. As for inside knowledge …”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been rather distant from the clan for the last two decades, but I’m still in contact with some of them, and hear most of the family news. As I said, there was an extra factor that made Drago’s double promotion a bad idea. To be frank, the extra factor was Drago’s father.”

  I paused to give General May a wary look.

  “Please continue, Colonel,” he said.

  “You may be aware that General Dragon Tell Dramis is a forceful man,” I said. “When he wants something he pushes hard, and he’s been pushing Drago since he was 2 years old. Telling the boy he has to live up to his heroic ancestors and his father’s example, and have a brilliant Military career. I’m not sure exactly what went through Drago’s head when he got that double promotion, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he thought his father was behind it, trying to give him a high speed start to his career.”

  General May gave me a startled look. “That would be impossible. Milita
ry officers are automatically excluded from promotion decisions involving partners or close relatives.”

  “I know that, but if Drago was feeling paranoid … Anyway, something Drago let slip last year makes me believe he decided to find out the truth about his promotion. Drago’s notoriously handsome. I think he talked someone in Military Personnel into letting him look at his confidential personnel record. I can just imagine him charming them into submission. After all, what could possibly be the harm in letting Drago look at his own record?”

  General May groaned.

  “My theory is he saw a few extremely confidential notes about startling tactical ability and potential for high rank. Perhaps even a projected career path, with target ranks for him to reach at certain ages. He was fresh from the Military Academy, and what he saw scared him to death. He’s been fighting promotion ever since.”

  There was a short silence before General May spoke. “Your theory isn’t entirely untenable.”

  What he meant was that I was precisely right about Drago’s records. I knew it!

  “The incident at Hera attracted the attention of the General Marshal and his General Staff,” said General May. “We had the highest hopes of Drago Tell Dramis back then, and we haven’t changed our minds about his ability. There’ve been several more interesting incidents since Hera.”

  “I know,” I said. “Seven people died to make this world safe. It would have been well over two hundred if Drago hadn’t dreamed up a way to make an incoming group of giant lizards fly over our fuel dump and then blown it up.”

  “So how do you suggest the situation should be handled?” asked General May.

  “Stop pushing the man,” I said. “I’ve had Drago holding the position of a Commander, while only having the rank of Major, for two years. I’ve resisted several obvious opportunities to promote him. He’s nearing thirty now, gaining maturity, and he’s got a good team around him. His current deputy has an unusual history, joining the Military when she was slightly older than most recruits, and she’s a strong minded, steadying influence.”