“One,” said the ambassador.
“How many other races that humans know of have the ability to detect skip drives?” Our third major question. We assumed that the Consu knew of more races than we did, so asking a more general question of how many races had the technology would be of no use to us; likewise asking them who else they had given the technology to, since some other race could have come up with the technology on its own. Not every piece of tech in the universe is a hand-me-down from some more advanced race. Occasionally people think these things up on their own.
“None,” the ambassador said. Another lucky break for us. If nothing else, it gave us some time to figure out how to get around it.
“You still have one more question,” Jane said, and pointed me back in the direction of the ambassador, who stood, waiting for my last query. So, I figured, what the hell.
“The Consu can wipe out most of the races in this area of space,” I said. “Why don’t you?”
“Because we love you,” the ambassador said.
“Excuse me?” I said. Technically, this could have qualified as a fifth question, one the Consu was not required to answer. But it did anyway.
“We cherish all life that has the potential for Ungkat”—that last part was pronounced like a fender scraping a brick wall—“which is participation in the great cycle of rebirth,” the ambassador said. “We tend to you, to all you lesser races, consecrating your planets so that all who dwell there may be reborn into the cycle. We sense our duty to participate in your growth. The Rraey believe we provided them with the technology you question after because they offered up one of their planets to us, but that is not so. We saw the chance to move both of your races closer to perfection, and joyfully we have done so.”
The ambassador opened its slashing arms, and we saw its secondary arms, hands open, almost imploring. “The time in which your people will be worthy to join us will be that much closer now. Today you are unclean and must be reviled even as you are loved. But content yourself in the knowledge that deliverance will one day be at hand. I myself go now to my death, unclean in that I have spoken to you in your tongue, but assured again a place in the cycle because I have moved your people toward their place in the great wheel. I despise you and I love you, you who are my damnation and salvation both. Leave now, so that we may destroy this place, and celebrate your progression. Go.”
“I don’t like it,” Lieutenant Tagore said at our next briefing, after the others and I recounted our experiences. “I don’t like it at all. The Consu gave the Rraey that technology specifically so they could fuck with us. That damn bug said so itself. They’ve got us dancing like puppets on strings. They could be telling the Rraey right now that we’re on our way.”
“That would be redundant,” Captain Jung said, “considering the skip drive detection technology.”
“You know what I mean,” Tagore shot back. “The Consu aren’t going to do us any favors, since they clearly want us and the Rraey to fight, in order to ‘progress’ to another cosmic level, whatever the fuck that means.”
“The Consu weren’t going to do us any favors anyway, so enough about them,” Major Crick said. “We may be moving according to their plans, but remember that their plans happen to coincide with our own up to a point. And I don’t think the Consu give a shit whether we or the Rraey come out on top. So let’s concentrate on what we’re doing instead of what the Consu are doing.”
My BrainPal clicked on; Crick sent a graphic of Coral, and another planet, the Rraey homeworld. “The fact that the Rraey are using borrowed technology means we have a chance to act, to hit them fast and hard, both on Coral and at their homeworld,” he said. “While we have been chatting up the Consu, the CDF has been moving ships to skip distance. We have six hundred ships—nearly a third of our forces—in position and ready to skip. Upon hearing from us, the CDF will start the clock on simultaneous attacks on Coral and the Rraey homeworld. The idea is both to take back Coral and to pin down potential Rraey reinforcements. Hitting their homeworld will incapacitate the ships there and force Rraey ships in other parts of space to prioritize between assisting Coral or the Rraey homeworld.
“Both attacks are contingent on one thing: knocking out their ability to know we’re coming in. That means taking their tracking station and knocking it offline—but not destroying it. The technology in that tracking station is technology the CDF can use. Maybe the Rraey can’t figure it out, but we’re farther along the technological curve. We blow the station only if there’s absolutely no other choice. We’re going to take the station and hold it until we can get reinforcements down to the surface.”
“How long is that going to take?” asked Jung.
“The simultaneous assaults will be coordinated to begin four hours after we enter Coral space,” Crick said. “Depending on the intensity of the ship-to-ship battles, we can expect additional troops to reinforce us sometime after the first couple of hours.”
“Four hours after we enter Coral space?” Jung asked. “Not after we’ve taken the tracking station?”
“That’s right,” Crick said. “So we damn well better take the station, people.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m troubled by a small detail.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Perry,” Crick said.
“The success of the offensive attack is predicated on our taking out the tracking station that keeps tabs on our ships coming in,” I said.
“Right,” said Crick.
“This would be the same tracking station that’s going to be tracking us when we skip to Coral space,” I said.
“Right,” said Crick.
“I was on a ship that was tracked as it entered Coral space, if you’ll recall,” I said. “It was ripped apart and every single person who was on it but me died. Aren’t you a little concerned that something very similar will happen to this ship?”
“We slid into Coral space undetected before,” Tagore said.
“I’m aware of that, since the Sparrowhawk was the ship that rescued me,” I said. “And believe me, I am grateful. However, that strikes me as the sort of trick you get away with once. And even if we skip into the Coral system far enough away from the planet to avoid detection, it would take us several hours to reach Coral. The timing is way off for that. If this is going to work, the Sparrowhawk has to skip in close to the planet. So I want to know how we’re going to do that and still expect the ship to stay in one piece.”
“The answer to that is really quite simple,” Major Crick said. “We don’t expect the ship to stay in one piece. We expect it to be blasted right out of the sky. In fact, we’re counting on it.”
“Pardon me?” I said. I looked around the table, expecting to see looks of confusion similar to the one I was wearing. Instead, everyone was looking somewhat thoughtful. I found this entirely too disturbing.
“High-orbit insertion, then, is it?” asked Lieutenant Dalton.
“Yes,” Crick said. “Modified, obviously.”
I gaped. “You’ve done this before?” I said.
“Not this exactly, Lieutenant Perry,” Jane said, drawing my attention to her. “But yes, on occasion we’ve inserted Special Forces directly from spacecraft—usually when the use of shuttles is not an option, as it would be here. We have special dropsuits to insulate ourselves from the heat of entering the atmosphere; beyond that it’s like any normal airdrop.”
“Except that in this case, your ship is being shot out from under you,” I said.
“That is the new wrinkle here,” Jane admitted.
“You people are absolutely insane,” I said.
“It makes for an excellent tactic,” Major Crick said. “If the ship is torn apart, bodies are an expected part of the debris. The CDF just dropped a skip drone to us with fresh information on the tracking station’s location, so we can skip above the planet in a good position to drop our people. The Rraey will think they’ve destroyed our assault before it happened. They won’t even know we’re there u
ntil we hit them. And then it will be too late.”
“Assuming any of you survive the initial strike,” I said.
Crick looked over to Jane and nodded. “The CDF has bought us a little wiggle room,” Jane said to the group. “They’ve begun placing skip drives onto shielded missile clusters and tossing them into Coral space. When their shields are struck they launch the missiles, which are very hard for the Rraey to hit. We’ve gotten several Rraey ships over the last two days this way—now they’re waiting a few seconds before they fire in order to accurately track anything that’s been thrown at them. We should have anywhere from ten to thirty seconds before the Sparrowhawk is hit. That’s not enough time for a ship that’s not expecting the hits to do anything, but for us it’s enough time to get our people off the ship. It’s also maybe enough time for the bridge crew to launch a distracting offensive attack as well.”
“The bridge crew is going to stay on the ship for this?” I asked.
“We’ll be suited up with the others and operating the ship via BrainPal,” Major Crick said. “But we’ll be on the ship at least until our first missile volley is away. We don’t want to operate BrainPals once we leave the ship until we’re deep in Coral’s atmosphere; it would give away the fact we’re alive to any Rraey that might be monitoring. There’s some risk involved, but there are risks for everyone who is on this ship. Which brings us, incidentally, to you, Lieutenant Perry.”
“Me,” I said.
“Quite obviously, you’re not going to want to be on the ship when it gets hit,” Crick said. “At the same time, you haven’t trained for this sort of mission, and we also promised you would be here in an advisory capacity. We can’t in good conscience ask for you to participate. After this briefing you’ll be provided with a shuttle, and a skip drone will be dispatched back to Phoenix with your shuttle’s coordinates and a request for retrieval. Phoenix keeps retrieval ships permanently stationed at skip distance; you should be picked up within a day. We’ll leave you a month’s worth of supplies, however. And the shuttle is equipped with its own emergency skip drones if it comes to that.”
“So you’re ditching me,” I said.
“It’s nothing personal,” Crick said. “General Keegan will want to have a briefing on the situation and the negotiations with the Consu, and as our liaison with conventional CDF, you’re the best person to do both.”
“Sir, with your permission, I’d like to remain,” I said.
“We really have no place for you, Lieutenant,” Crick said. “You’d serve this mission better back on Phoenix.”
“Sir, with all due respect, you have at least one hole in your ranks,” I said. “Sergeant Hawking died during our negotiations with the Consu; Private Aquinas is missing half her arm. You won’t be able to reinforce your ranks prior to your mission. Now, I’m not Special Forces, but I am a veteran soldier. I am, at the very least, better than nothing.”
“I seem to recall you calling us all absolutely insane,” Captain Jung said to me.
“You are all absolutely insane,” I said. “So if you’re going to pull this off you’re going to need all the help you can get. Also, sir,” I said, turning to Crick, “remember that I lost my people on Coral. I don’t feel right about sitting out this fight.”
Crick looked over to Dalton. “Where are we with Aquinas?” he asked.
Dalton shrugged. “We have her on an accelerated healing regimen,” he said. “It hurts like a bitch to regrow an arm this fast, but she’ll be ready when we make the skip. I don’t need him.”
Crick turned to Jane, who was staring at me. “It’s your call, Sagan,” Crick said. “Hawking was your noncom. If you want him, you can have him.”
“I don’t want him,” Jane said, looking directly at me as she said it. “But he’s right. I’m down a man.”
“Fine,” Crick said. “Get him up to speed, then.” He turned to me. “If Lieutenant Sagan thinks you’re not going to cut it, you’re getting stuffed in a shuttle. Do you get me?”
“I get you, Major,” I said, staring back at Jane.
“Good,” he said. “Welcome to Special Forces, Perry. You’re the first realborn we’ve ever had in our ranks, so far as I know. Try not to fuck up, because if you do, I promise you the Rraey are going to be the least of your problems.”
Jane entered my stateroom without my permission; she could do that now that she was my superior officer.
“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” she said.
“You people are down a man,” I said. “I’m a man. Do the math.”
“I got you on this ship because I knew you’d be put on the shuttle,” Jane said. “If you were rotated back into the infantry, you’d be on one of the ships involved in the assault. If we don’t take the tracking station, you know what’s going to happen to those ships and everyone in them. This was the only way I knew I was going to keep you safe, and you just threw it away.”
“You could have told Crick you didn’t want me,” I said. “You heard him. He’d be happy to kick me into a shuttle and leave me floating in Consu space until someone got around to picking me up. You didn’t because you know how fucking crazy this little plan is. You know you’re going to need all the help you can get. I didn’t know it was you I’d be under, you know, Jane. If Aquinas wasn’t going to be ready, I could just as easily be serving under Dalton for this mission. I didn’t even know Hawking was your noncom until Crick said something about it. All I know was that if this thing is going to work, you need everyone you’ve got.”
“Why do you care?” Jane said. “This isn’t your mission. You’re not one of us.”
“I’m one of you right now, aren’t I?” I said. “I’m on this ship. I’m here, thanks to you. And I don’t have anywhere else to be. My entire company got blown up and most of my other friends are dead. And anyway, as one of you mentioned, we’re all human. Shit, I was even grown in a lab, just like you. This body was, at least. I might as well be one of you. So now I am.”
Jane flared. “You have no idea what it’s like to be one of us,” she said. “You said you wanted to know about me. What part do you want to know? Do you want to know what it’s like to wake up one day, your head filled with a library full of information—everything from how to butcher a pig to how to pilot a starship—but not to know your own name? Or that you even have one? Do you want to know what it’s like never to have been a child, or even to have seen one until you step foot on some burned-out colony and see a dead one in front of you? Maybe you’d like to hear about how the first time any of us talk to a realborn we have to keep from hitting you because you speak so slow, move so slow and think so fucking slow that we don’t know why they even bother to enlist you.
“Or maybe you’d like to know that every single Special Forces soldier dreams up a past for themselves. We know we’re the Frankenstein monster. We know we’re put together from bits and pieces of the dead. We look in a mirror and we know we’re seeing somebody else, and that the only reason we exist is because they don’t—and that they are lost to us forever. So we all imagine the person they could have been. We imagine their lives, their children, their husbands and wives, and we know that none of these things can ever be ours.”
Jane stepped over and got right in my face. “Do you want to know what it’s like to meet the husband of the woman you used to be? To see recognition in his face but not to feel it yourself, no matter how much you want to? To know he so desperately wants to call you a name that isn’t yours? To know that when he looks at you he sees decades of life—and that you know none of it. To know he’d been with you, been inside of you, was there holding your hand when you died, telling you that he loved you. To know he can’t make you realborn, but can give you continuation, a history, an idea of who you were to help you understand who you are. Can you even imagine what it’s like to want that for yourself? To keep it safe at any cost?”
Closer. Lips almost touching mine, but no hint of a kiss in them. “You lived with me te
n times longer than I’ve lived with me,” Jane said. “You are the keeper of me. You can’t imagine what that’s like for me. Because you’re not one of us.” She stepped back.
I stared as she stepped back. “You’re not her,” I said. “You said it to me yourself.”
“Oh, Christ,” Jane snapped. “I lied. I am her, and you know it. If she had lived, she’d have joined the CDF and they would have used the same goddamned DNA to make her new body as they made me with. I’ve got souped-up alien shit in my genes but you’re not fully human anymore either, and she wouldn’t be either. The human part of me is the same as what it would be in her. All I’m missing is the memory. All I’m missing is my entire other life.”
Jane came back to me again, cupped my face with her hand. “I am Jane Sagan, I know that,” she said. “The last six years are mine, and they’re real. This is my life. But I’m Katherine Perry, too. I want that life back. The only way I can have it is through you. You have to stay alive, John. Without you, I lose myself again.”
I reached up to her hand. “Help me stay alive,” I said. “Tell me everything I need to know to do this mission well. Show me everything I need to help your platoon do its job. Help me to help you, Jane. You’re right, I don’t know what it’s like to be you, to be one of you. But I do know I don’t want to be floating around in a damned shuttle while you’re getting shot at. I need you to stay alive, too. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” she said. I took her hand and kissed it.
SEVENTEEN
This is the easy part—Jane sent to me. Just lean into it.
The bay doors were blown open, an explosive decompression that mirrored my previous arrival into Coral space. I was going to have to come here one time without being flung out of a cargo bay. This time, however, the bay was clear of dangerous, untethered objects; the only objects in the Sparrowhawk’s hold were its crew and soldiers, decked out in airtight, bulky jumpsuits. Our feet were nailed to the floor, so to speak, by electromagnetic tabs, but just as soon as the cargo bay doors were blasted away and a sufficient distance to keep from killing any of us, the tabs would cut out and we’d tumble out the door, carried away by the escaping air—the cargo bay being overpressurized to make sure there’d still be enough lift.