20 October, 2115:
“Conventional warfare is about engaging your enemy when both of you are in the same place at the same time,” Matthew explains to his multi-colored audience. “But ideally, you don’t confront your enemy directly unless you have a significant advantage: position, surprise, weaponry, numbers…”
The ETE team leaders keep attentive, sitting around our Briefing table. (I’d tried to talk Matthew into visiting the ETE Stations, but he’s been reluctant to leave the base given recent events.) Helmets off, I can see their faces, but more telling: the fatigue and frustration of their recent experiences.
“Well over a hundred years ago now, we ran into opponents who changed the rules of warfare. Lacking an advantage in direct confrontation, they realized they could attack us in place, without being present in time. That’s the war-college way of saying the bastards set traps for us, ran away and hid.”
“Which is what the Shinkyo are doing now,” Green Team Leader—Rhiannon Dodds—confirms the point with an uncharacteristic edge in her voice.
The ETE overseeing the care-and-feeding of the Shinkyo left-behinds have so far walked into six separate explosions, some that collapsed entire sections of the colony. Three Guardians are still in “rebuilding.” But nine Shinkyo were killed, and fifteen wounded severely enough that the ETE are concerned that they can’t provide adequate medical care to “Naturals”. And more than half the colony is now without survival-sufficient air or heat.
“The key is to not be predictable,” Matthew tells them. “They need to know where you’re likely to be and roughly when you’ll be there in order to hit you. They also need to know when you’re not likely to be there in order to set the trap.”
“That’s why we had no problems for the first week,” Paul assesses correctly.
“Avoid routine,” Matthew warns. “Don’t establish patterns. And learn to identify the obvious kill zones: places you can’t watch all the time but still have to visit, routes where you have a limited choice of path. And I’ll tell you this up front: you won’t see them all. Best you can do is reduce your vulnerability.”
One or two of the sealsuited Guardians glances back at me now and again, but I keep silent in my seat off in the corner by the entry hatch. Matthew is doing an excellent job despite his reluctance to take a turn at playing “advisor”. But after the slicing I took assisting the fledging Guardians against the Shinkyo, I expect Matthew would agree to anything if it meant I would step out of that role. And the “young” Guardians seem to be respectfully attentive (Matthew says it’s just because he’s actually older than they are).
“If they can’t take advantage of your patterns, then they’ll try to get you to come to the trap. You’ve already started to see that: They do something you can’t ignore—take out life support, start a fire, threaten to collapse a section on top of a bunch of kids—and they know you’ll be coming. Best you can do then is not come the way they’re expecting.”
I watch their faces: They look so much older—at least in the eyes—than they did when they were just training. They aren’t dealing well with what they’ve had to face since they took over the colony. The Shinkyo continue to prove willing to make almost any sacrifice for a chance at hitting the ETE, and they’re blatantly exploiting their targets’ respect for life.
Though so far immune to being killed in action, attrition in the teams has been high—almost a third of the original fifty have quit. Stations have had to combine forces until new recruits can be trained, and the replacements aren’t keeping up with losses. Worse, the ETE leadership already seems to be losing the commitment they had when they formed their experimental commando force.
“There have to be options,” Red Team Leader—a wiry “kid” named Jaden Fox who reminds me a lot of Anton—blurts out his protest. Again, a few of them look back in my direction, only to get my nod toward Matthew, who takes a heavy breath and breaks out of his “instructor” posture.
“Bottom line is about what you’re willing to do. I served a group of nations that claimed ideals almost as high as yours—at least in public—ideals our enemies were happy to exploit. Most choices we made ended ugly in one way or another. But—much to my personal surprise—it turned out that holding onto those ideals is what eventually started to turn the tide. In the meantime, you’ve got imperfect choices.”
He flashes a graphic of the colony up over the table.
“You can turn your technology to try to harden your control over the site, but the fact is: Your opponents aren’t much impressed with your magic toys and your death-proofing. Outcome: you invest a lot of time, resources and likely blood into securing the place, and they figure out a humiliating way to beat you within a week.
“Now don’t give me that look like I’m just telling what won’t work,” he snaps before anyone can comment. “I know you’ve been thinking about this, so I’m trying to save you the grief. Better options… Well, if it were me—and it isn’t—I’d consider two plays…”
He waves his stylus around the floating map, creating a rough perimeter. Then he rotates the graphic so everyone can get a good 3D view.
“I’ll call the first one the ‘Palestinian Option.’ Pull out, cut the site off. Make sure the residents have basic needs, and let them be. Just keep control of what goes in or out, and keep enough of an eye on them to make sure they aren’t doing anything really nasty in there, like making nukes—leave ‘em with an agreement. If they break the rules, repeat what you did Day One: Sweep in big and disarm. Bad things will still happen, but it will cost you—and them—less in the long run. Also, you don’t look like the bully quite as much: you did your thing for all the right reasons and then tried to walk away.”
He gives them a few breaths to digest the idea. I think I see gears turning behind the Team Leaders’ eyes.
“Option Two is the UNACT play,” he continues. “Use your superhero tech and take the fight to these bastards. Hunt down their leadership, smack them down before they can get a good hit rolling at you. The sweet part is you can play your advantages to best effect, and maybe feel like you’re accomplishing something in the process. You will look like the Big Bad for it, but the long run and good ideals will play in your favor. Now one extra thing you’ve got going that we didn’t: the Shinkyo population is limited, both in numbers and potential real estate. That means you have a better chance at management than we had dealing with the entire map and population of Planet Earth.
“Now for your part: I really, really don’t understand you tech. That means you need to figure out how to play with what you’ve got. If you think you can make an old man who never was good with the science as a young man understand what you can do with what you can do, then I’m game to put my inflated opinion into the pool.
“Was this at all helpful?”
Paul seems lost in thought. I see Simon grin just a bit, and Rhiannon and Jaden exchange glances and nod very slightly. The response from the other team leaders is mixed.
“We should break to consult with our home Stations,” Rhiannon suggests. “Thank you, Colonel Burke.”
“Well, that sucked,” Matthew sighs after the room empties.
“I think you did better than you think you did, given the audience,” I try.
“This reminds me of that time you took me to that Tibetan Monk thing, with the cool sand painting they spent a week making grain-by-grain only to blow it away at the end just to show the impermanence of shit,” he grouses. “A bunch of guys in weird outfits with that bullshit serenity on their faces that screams aloof and naïve. You seem to make some kind of connection with them, but I can’t defeat the urge to slap some reality into their hippie-dippy world view. They’re getting their asses kicked like a bunch of green academy lieutenants, and they’re looking at me like I’m the idiot.”
“I seem to remember you being the one with the better people skills between the two of us,” I jab him.
“You’ve mellowed with age. I’ve gotten cranky. You have any of tha
t bourbon left?”
We don’t hear back from the team leaders after lunch—they’ve gone outside to sit in the dust under the pink sky and do their silent-conference routine.
I’m overdue for a wound-check, so I limp down to B-Deck Medical. My sword wounds are still a little tender, especially the chop I took to just above my hip joint, which goes the furthest to limit my mobility. I look like a tiger attacked me from the shoulders down.
“Colonel…”
It’s Ryder who greets me when I step through the hatch. She seems a bit shaken by my arrival, but otherwise looks only a little drawn from her exposure. The multiple little cuts she got to her face from the blast have healed to deep red-brown blemishes. She smiles at me sheepishly, has trouble meeting my eyes.
“You’re looking better than I am,” I tell her, stripping off my jacket and showing her my arms. She automatically gloves up and goes about the exam without a word.
“I’m going to need you to drop your pants, sir,” she orders flatly when she’s done with my arms, though there’s a tremor in her voice. “Any pain or difficulty with range of motion?”
“I’ve had worse,” I deflect, taking my pants down to mid-thigh and turning my right hip toward her, “just not as ugly. Everything works as good as can be expected for an old fart who’s been through a shredder. Doc Halley did good work.”
The hip wound is the only one that’s still wrapped, so she has to replace the bandage. The sutures have already dissolved, leaving a line of fresh red scar that curves almost eight inches around the side of me. A few more inches to the rear and I’ve have to admit that one of the bastards got me in the ass.
“Did you expect to be treating sword-wounds in the Twenty-Second Century?” I try joking again as she gets a new dressing in place. She steps back and sits down, hanging her head like a child that’s done something awful.
“We’ve all been on the edge of losing it since we woke up to this,” I try validating. “You’ve got more reason than most. At least you didn’t get yourself into a swordfight with a bunch of ninjas.”
It makes her laugh a little, but she’s starting to tear up.
“Colonel, please…” she finally gets out, “we only have three physicians for over a thousand personnel, and no backup facilities for the foreseeable future. What it comes down to… I had no right. You can’t afford to be short your only surgeon. And this isn’t honoring my husband’s name. I know that.”
“Jim was a good leader,” I offer. “That’s saying something coming from me—just ask Matthew or Rick. And bottom line: if that Shinkyo fighter was carrying a functioning nuke, running for the tube wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“You know, I haven’t been back up there since it happened,” she admits, her voice still small.
“Tru’s done a good job of patching the structure back together, and the ETE coughed up seedlings for a lot of new species. Abbas even sent us a handful of strong backs—including a good welder who’s been sharing tips with Morales. You should go up and get some sun and see what they’ve done with the place.”
She nods, forcing a smile.
“So, how do I look?” I put her back on topic.
“Better if I’d been in any shape to do the sewing,” she confesses, though the bitterness is starting to ease.
“Then you get to stitch me up next time.”
“If there’s a next time, I just may let you bleed a while,” she warns, shaking her head. I get my pants back together and thank her for the new wrapping. But then I stop at the hatch and add:
“Listen. I know we’ve been avoiding this, especially since we don’t really know… But maybe it’s time we did a little memorial for everyone we can’t account for since the bombardment.”
She takes a shuddering breath in to let me know she’s still not quite done crying, and gives me a little nod.
“I think that’s a fine idea, Colonel.”
By dinner, the ETE haven’t broken their circle. I put together a light meal of warmed Nomad-style bread and some of the vegetables we got from the ETE, and sit with Matthew, Lisa, Anton and Rick to speculate on what the ETE might choose to do from here. Anton lets me know where his team’s at with the transmitter project, and tells me that Morales thinks she can have one of the derelict AAVs flying enough to make a mobile command post for the trip into Candor.
Afterwards, I push myself back into my Spin-Time regimen, enduring the full fifteen (which I haven’t managed since I left for my advising stint with the ETE). And, not satisfied with that abuse, limp back to my quarters to fetch Sakina and my “present.”
I take her down to the D-Deck gym. Sakina plants herself cross-legged out of the way, and watches passively while I re-acquaint my muscles with a real katana. I try not to count how many decades it’s been since I last made this a serious part of my life. I didn’t even think about trying to take my own swords on the shuttle, despite anticipating never returning to Earth. I suppose it says something that I made room for three liters of small-batch bourbon instead.
I still remember select fragments of the choreographed training drills that once were reflex. Many of the moves and combinations come back readily enough, muscle memory making up for what my conscious mind has trouble dredging up.
My forearms and shoulders start to ache in short order—the low gravity makes little difference because the quick, sharp cuts are about inertia more than weight. I remember an old warning that I more readily disregarded in my youth: If you haven’t been keeping up your training, your mind may still remember moves that your body can’t manage anymore, and that’s how you get hurt. So I slow down, try to keep to the basics, focus like a beginner, reacquaint myself with the discipline of patience.
It isn’t long before I’ve got more audience than I’d expected.
“So that’s the little toy you picked up during your misadventure at the Shinkyo Colony,” I recognize Tru’s voice before I turn around to see her limping in. The small selection of junior officers and enlisted personnel who’d wandered in have all settled around the edges of the gym to watch quietly (though they give Sakina a wide berth). Tru seems to be the only one brave enough to walk out onto the floor where the crazy old man is swinging a three-foot razor.
“Still don’t know what it means,” I tell her, stopping my drill (and feeling more than just a bit thankful for the excuse to take a break). I heft the blade as casually as I can. “Might as well get some exercise out of it.”
“Or another shot at youth?” she jibes, perhaps reading me more accurately than I’d like.
“I’ve been meaning to catch you up on the ETE situation,” I change the subject, smoothly sheathing the blade and trying not to sound as winded as I am. “They’re digesting their options against the Shinkyo insurgency. I thought you might be able to give them some insight.”
“You’d do better,” she counters, sounding like she’s bristling more than a little bit at the suggestion. “My Ecos never devalued life, contrary to what your bosses tried to feed the media. These Shinkyo seem even happier than your old-school Muslim Extremists to throw away lives on both sides. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around monsters like that—never could—and I’d rather not try.”
“I know,” I soothe. “Not asking you to. But hope says not all the colonists are suicidal killers. The ETE don’t know how to manage the colony and secure it at the same time. You were the one I thought about to give them best advice on not totally ‘raqing the situation.”
“What didn’t ‘raq the situation during the Mariner and Industry insurgencies was you,” she puts it back on me, but her eyes drop to the floor and she gives me a soft but lopsided smile. “You reached out instead of busting in guns-blazing.”
“That took both sides,” I remind her.
“You think that’s possible here?” she criticizes, getting edgy again.
“I don’t really know the Shinkyo,” I tell her, “but I know the ETE well enough to know they don’t reach out gr
aciously.”
She grins at that, shakes her head.
“I admit I’ve been thinking lots of bad thoughts about this amateur occupation they’ve got on their hands,” she allows. “You think the ETE will take diplomacy lessons from an old hippie relic?”
“I’ve spent weeks living with them. Believe me: They’re still hippies at heart, once you strip away the insufferable smugness.”
“Are you sure you don’t just want me in just to give your ‘Power Ranger’ pals some credibility when we let Earthside know what they’ve been up to?”
“Credibility or a conscience,” I toss back. “I don’t have much to offer in that second category. You do.”
She stews on it for a moment, then throws a bad joke: “As long as it doesn’t require a threesome with your jailbait bed-warmer.” She darts a hard glance at Sakina again, who’s watching Tru like she’s a bug.
“You know that’s not what we’re doing,” I try correcting. Tru shakes her head and gives me a lopsided grin, then leans in close to tell me:
“You really are useless at figuring out when a woman wants to fuck you.”
“It keeps me out of trouble,” I deflect, hoping I’m not visibly blushing.
Rios shows up just then, providing a welcome excuse to end the subject. He’s got a pair of Shinkyo swords and a bundle of batons made out of conduit under his arm.
“Mind if I join you, sir?”
“Please do, Lieutenant.”
He turns and sets his bundles down near where Sakina is sitting.
“You know where I sleep if you ever decide to stop playing dumb,” Tru tells me quietly. “Just come alone.”
She turns and limps away.
Rios has some skill at Escrima, and employs the Shinkyo short swords to good effect with a blade in each hand. After he warms up (or shows off), I offer to fence with him, and we switch to the batons he brought. He’s quicker and stronger, but once I get his basic style I figure out ways to get around him, and I think he’s surprised. After a few rounds I let him know I’m getting a little winded (blaming it on my recent injuries), and suggest he spar with Sakina.
Sakina is reasonably ginger with him, keeping it slow and fairly passive, and they show each other a few smart combinations—Rios winds up playing “student” a lot more than Sakina does, but she seems mildly amused to find the young Lieutenant has several moves worth learning. Soon, the pace is speeding up, with Sakina keeping him just matched all the while. She makes no serious attempt to defeat him.
I watch them form a kind of bond as they go at it, and I hope it helps ease Rios’ wariness of her—he’s never seemed comfortable with her presence, no matter how much she seems to look after me (probably still freshly remembering those multiple trouncings she gave him and his teams).
“I should send you on a turn at drilling the Guardian teams,” I tell him as they take a break. He’s sweating and panting where Sakina is barely breathing heavily.
“He is a worthy fighter,” Sakina admits easily. “And he was holding back when he fought against you.”
“I expect a better accounting next time, Lieutenant,” I let him know.
“You’ll get it, sir.”