Ilshan and the Valley
Never do for yourself what you can con an expert into doing for you. -Miles Naismith: "On War"
This report must necessarily be considered incomplete, as the resources of That Which Remains (of the Conservancy) are less than they were, but far greater than many suspect.
The Atavistic Powers still strive amongst themselves, having turned upon each other since the Pax Galactica was broken at the battle of the Oolithi Drift, some thirty years ago. Chief among them is the Markov Imperium, which has conquered two of its former allies and countless minor powers. At this point, it is the one which all other galactic states fear. The newly formed Spinward Rim Alliance opposes them. It is seeking yet more allies and buying up Wolfling Janissaries, especially humans, for a major offensive. It is hoped that they will reduce each other in military power without any major atrocities, like the extermination of the Hunters shortly after Oolithi Drift, but this is a forlorn hope…
Appendix D is a field report filed by our agent in charge of the Human Taskforce, and it raises both interesting and hopeful possibilities about the opportunities represented by the Human species, and stark options should they become integrated more fully into the ongoing crisis, by one faction or another…
Glossary-
Atavistic Movement- A Galaxy-wide school of philosophy and, later, political thought, which states that in becoming starfaring cultures, the species of the Galaxy have lost touch with that which makes them unique. One of the results this great turning was a dissatisfaction with the current order, which, tragically, was a very loose bureaucratic federation of Galactic institutions, from the Conservancy to the Galactic Trade Union. Several single-species states arose, causing strife as they attempted to bring all of their scattered peoples together and unite them under one purpose, usually Galactic domination.
Atavistic Powers- The great single-species galactic states which formed an alliance of convenience to defeat the forces still loyal to the Pax Galactica. The war against the Atavistic Powers was a very near thing, but most agree that it was lost at the Battle of the Oolithi Drift where a trap, laid by the Rangers and others, was betrayed, and turned into a rout.
Markov Imperium, see also the Markov species, the selection of the Autocrat, Imperial Satrapies, Territories and Protectorates…
Oolithi Drift, Battle of, see also The Long Retreat, the Roll of Honor, That Which Remains…
Spinward Rim Alliance- A new military confederation formed out of desperation by the Grey Unity, the Federated Parenthoods of the Oddities, the Free and Sovereign Clans of the Troika (Russian, the Ilshani to English translation is 'Tricycles'), and others, to fight the Markov Imperium. None of the big three powers in the SRA trust each other, in fact, the Oddities and the Troika are traditional enemies, with dozens of derogatory words for each other that mostly translate as 'pervert!' or 'child-molester.' If biology is destiny, then this Alliance is destined to fall
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quickly into internal bickering, and fail.
(I believe the appropriate traditional Chinese curse is, 'May you live in Interesting Times!')
***
A long time ago, there was no such thing as the Conservancy...
Year Zero, Day Zero
Five Suns Xenoarchealogical Consortium Expedition to W-1232-F Site 829, South Continent, 3046 years before the present-
When they breached the last barrier, there was something scratched into the sandstone wall facing the inner door of the blast shelter they'd found so far underground. The team took views of it and went on about their survey, but Ash, the 'Hunter' explorer, remained there, reverently tracing the writing with a claw, almost with longing. Sothep, the Ijbarree linguist and information systems tech, imagined Hunter claw touching Ilshani claw across thirty thousand years. He shivered.
"Sha oossa na anoosk, Zah, anoosk eneb."
"You're getting very good at reading Ilshani script, Ash. I didn't think anybody was following my work on the syllabary." Ash didn't respond, and Sothep muttered, "Brilliant work, if I do say so, myself..."
He adjusted his optics, pulling up the recording he'd just taken. "Let's see... 'Wellness/Good Things? To become, becoming, plus, no that would be 'and', yes! Hey Ash, did you know, Ilshan literally means 'The Good Place', or 'The Place of the Good Folk?' I suppose another translation might be 'Heaven.' This next is 'becoming youth, youthening?' Zah is love..." He fussed happily with his files, in his own little world.
Quietly, just to himself and all his ghosts, Ash said, "Be well and grow young, Love, grow ever young." He leaned against the stone walls. The sheltering stone. The abiding stone.
"Goodbye for now, my love. I've much work to do, before can I join you."
***
Valley of the Vault of Ages, present day, First Day of the Returning Light Festival (Winter Solstice)
Marianne slapped her hand against the donation pillar and tapped at the air. "Authorization code 'Helen-Thomas.' Transfer these funds," more tap-tap-tapping of virtual keystrokes, 'to the Immediate Assistance account and a gross of stars to the Returning Light Festival Committee." "This sort of like the Red Cross and FOP all bundled up?" Frank considered and sent 144 credits
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of his own after hers.
"Yeah, sorta. Here, have an ID bracelet and souvenir. Oh! Wait one." She ducked into the back of the stall and hugged the proprietor of the 'Free Store' (Frank tried to wrap his mind around, what, to him, was an oxymoron). The bracelets out front were for passersby to take. There was a workshop inside, with personalized, one-of-a-kind goods. The artist and shopkeeper Marianne was talking with was a Ranger, one of those starfish aliens, like Scout Prime of the Galactic Survey.
Frank looked out over the great snowy valley, crowded with happy people, some of whom were even human. The Valley of the Vault of Ages, or simply, The Valley. The Rangers said it like that, as if there was only one. The place where the Conservancy began, ruins of a murdered civilization that inspired the younger races of the Galaxy to build anew. 'Vivaform' worlds. Build ships, trade, explore, map wormholes, even create new ones. In one phrase with almost religious significance- (The Work).
Frank muttered the words he'd heard Marianne say every morning.
(The Circle is made whole! That which was broken, is Reformed! That which was barren and dead, is Reborn!)
(The Work gives us meaning. The Work gives us hope. The Work goes ever on.)
Marianne came back. "Choola makes a lot of these, they're very popular at Returning Lights and with visitors to the Vault of Ages in general." She handed him a frilly brooch, and the little voice in the back of his head told him, 'Suck it up, Soldier!' He read the syllables of Ilshani with a wry grin. It occurred to him how much he was smiling, these days.
"Sha oossa... 'be well-' is this a 'Get Well' card? Ow! Hey, careful, government issue, woman! My Uncle Sam wants me back in one piece, probably just so's he can put me in Leavenworth..." Damn, at this rate I'm gonna break my face, Frank thought. "'Sha oossa na anoosk.' Be well, and grow young."
"It's a traditional gift, sort of a Valentine."
"Hey, Earth rules, I'm supposed to give you flowers and chocolate, boxes of it. Make you fat..." Not gonna happen, of course. She ate like a horse and burned right through it. Frank could barely keep up with her, but, he told himself, every day, that's because he was the wrong side of thirty, despite all that fancy Galactic medical garbage. Really.
"So feed me, Oh Oblivious One! One hungry Ranger here, and my mission tonight is vital cultural exchange. Later on, Earthling, I'm going to tear off all your clothes!"
*** "So, there's something I've been meaning to ask you..." They were done with the sights, and wandering about. Some of the tons of Garas that had flooded Ilshan in that last twelveday or so
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were having an impromptu concert, after someone from the Festival Committee, yet another Ranger, had sorted things out with the Militia. That little wrinkle didn't bother Frank, it sort of made up for the 'this-is-too-good-to-be-true' feeling that the 'Cee' gave him. Marianne was naturally more invested in Conservancy boosterism, but she was too good-natured to let it bother her for long. There was only one time he'd ever seen her depressed.
"That's kinda ominous. Whatever it is, just ask it."
"What had you so worked up, back on Earthbound? Remember, big damn virtual lizard vs. hell- cat Ranger? That 'killed' you 43 times before you brained it with a tooth-pick?"
She turned and faced him. There were no reservations. She looked at him, searching his face for something. Serious, confident, and open. Not for the first time, he asked himself, what do they do toto make these people? Human and alien alike, they were happy in the face of disaster, hardworking on projects that would never return any benefit within their own, extended, lifetimes, and brave in spite of the ever-present fear that their civilization was no more special than any of the thousands that had gone before. Doomed, like them, to the dusty eons.
"When I was a teenager, I made some choices that I do not regret. I know that Earth isn't ready for some of the more exotic pairings you've seen in the Conservancy. You're not upset by that, I hope?"
"There's a basic story plot that Moose explained to me, 'The man who learned better.' I'd like to think I'm the hero of my own story. And, in case I didn't mention this before, I love you. 'You' as in 'all of you,' and not just 'I'm in lust with a hot, ass-kicking, Ranger babe.'"
"Ooh, 'not just', I've gotta put that in my journal... Anyway, we experimented. You know, the kinky stuff, and I do believe I'm making the Green Beret blush," Marianne laughed. "I've stories to tell on you, now."
"All of that knowledge didn't just go away. As lovers will, I fell out of love. Trikes don't believe in exclusivity, and by the way, I do, now. I didn't, then, and the troupe I was part of flew apart in jealousy, lovers quarrels, and frankly, theft. Some of them went back to the Trike Homeworld. Two of them later worked on the Janissaries Project. Between that, and, a few years later, the murder of the Firstborn Clones, I went and volunteered for the most dangerous mission I knew of. Y'know, this little planet called Earth?"
"Eventually, after lots of adventures, I'm part of this crew of abducted humans on Earthbound, and we pick up this kid who's been experimented on. Improved. Without his permission, or understanding, comprehending, what was being done to him. The Trikes made him better integrated into Trike society, and probably thought they were doing the right thing. Maybe they didn't care."
"Now here's the thing. There's a basic tenet of the Conservancy, I really don't know if it came from the Ilshani or we cooked it up in the last three thousand years. It goes like this- 'Thou shalt not control a person.'"
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"This was just about the most reprehensible crime I can imagine, and I, even though I didn't mean to hurt this boy, I helped make what they did possible. There wasn't anything I could do about it, and I wasn't any use to anybody until I worked it out. So I took that virtual Allosaur apart because I could not touch the selfish bastards that did that to 'Daniel Jackson.'"
***
"Can I ask you something?" The sun had set, but Mariannes' breath steamed by fire light.
"Sure," Frank said, turning away from the spectacle of a Gara acrobatic troupe, and the grinning musicians who were setting such a frenetic pace to the act.
"What happened between you and Moose to get you and the 'Space Cadets', your words, working together, instead of sniping?"
"Oh, I'd had enough, one day, and I went off on them and all their play-acting. I asked Moose, 'Kid, is there anything that's real to you? Anything that's important enough to give your life for?' He said something snotty about how being willing to die for a cause is the mark of an immature man. I was about to kill him, so help me, when I heard the rest of whatever, whoever, he was quoting. About having to be able to live for something."
"Damn if that wasn't the right answer. Alright, let me try to make sense here, I know that's unlikely, but I'll try. I'm a soldier, and Patton is one of my favorite movies. George C. Scott stands up there and says it all. 'Your job is not to die for your country, it's to make some other poor bastard die for his.' If you have to. I'd rather not have either honor, some patriot's blood on my hands or to give my last full measure. But I do the best I can. I have my moments."
***
A few days earlier, on Earthbound, the invasion of the Garas had begun in earnest. They were basicly footing the bill for the rebuild, as Earthbound, it turned out, was some kind of Galactic Historical Treasure. The crew just shrugged, got to work, and lived with pointy noises poking into everything, triangular ears tracking interesting sounds, and yipping, grinning, canid mouths worrying figuratively and literally at the ship. The startling third eye was set forward, and the skulls bulged behind the ears, but the effect was strangely familiar, especially with the red fur and white and black accents. Vulpine.
"Garas are foxes!" Belinda laughed at the pair of kits that had stolen one of her work tools, being scolded by an adult. "I've gotta tell Moose. He'll get such a-" She thought, Wow, I managed to forget. Belinda bit her lip and sat slowly down, with her back to the wall, the ship. She thought, God, he loved this old wreck. And so do I. One of the kits, anxious at her distress, crept into her lap, and licked the salty tears from her chin. She chuckled and stroked its soft fur.
***
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"All I'm asking, Moose, is don't be a hero." Belinda winced, inwardly, at the cliche. She reached out and pulled a strand of hair out of his eyes, thinking, he needs a hair-cut. "I know you, you'll do something heroic and stupid, maybe manly-"
"Maybe manly!? Gee, thanks."
"This isn't a joke. I'm serious. And I've heard you go on at length about Heinleinian heroes and such."
"Hey, I was pretty drunk. Too drunk to play 'Sabrina', so I sang Hero of Canton a capella, and made up new verses..." Aw man, Moose thought. She's giving me 'The Look.' Say something, idiot! "Be-linda." That got him a smile. Oh, God, he thought. I love her.
"I want to live, live forever and terraform Mars, all of that." It was his catch-phrase, and she smiled. "I want us to live, have lots of fun and adventures, get to see the 'wider galaxy' and yes, maybe be heroes and heroines. But." He put his finger to her lips, shushing her objection.
"We can't play it safe. This ship, and the people in it, need us." Moose hugged her, a little too hard, and she just gritted her teeth and hugged him back, with all her strength. "I'm scared, too. But there's no place else I can be."
***
"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." -Wilhelm Stekel
(I heard this from the Major, on Ghost in the Shell, and googled it. Anime characters quote philosophers, I don't!
***
This is from earlier, before the Crew of Earthbound reaches Ilshan-
The Big Damn Lizard writhed, three or four virtual tonnes of carnosaur, with a similarly virtual fire-hardened spear-tip in its brain. The simulated dinosaur also had a primitive woven-grass rope around its neck for getting a very determined human close enough to strike.
Costigan, being Costigan, was impressed, and trying not to show it. He couldn't figure what to say, so he just glowered. Marianne was cleaning the gore off of her arm. The broken spear tip hadn't been the first thing that she'd gotten into the beast's eye-socket.
"Everything that lives, dies."
"Huh?"
"Sooner or later, you get that lecture, on the practice field or in a class. My mother likes to get it 66
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out of the way first thing. 'Death is a part of life, and sometimes the job, (The Work), is to do dangerous, deadly things, so that other people get to live.' Also, my earliest memories are of Old Complications, the Hunter who adopted human strays, took them out of deadly situations and brought them home. I suspect he's the source of the lecture, it's that old." They were speaking English, but she used the Ilshani for 'The Work.'
In the simulation, the beast finally lay still. And still, Marianne was washing her arm.
"Why? Why don't you just end the program? Except for when you dislocated your shoulder, none of this is real."
"I don't know about that. I might need to know how I fight with my arm slick, or-" She was suddenly, violently sick. Surprised and unnerved, Costigan went over to her. Held her.
Knowing how stupid it sounded, he asked her anyway. "Are you alright?"
She laughed, shakily. Definitely not alright. "No. Y'see, the whole point was to see how I deal with a situation where I can't win. Final score is Allosaurs- 43, Rangers- 1. So, I lost."
"Because you killed it." Costigan shook his head, thinking, 'I have got to talk to Brandi.'
"Because I survived. Look, I'll show you the recordings, sometime. We've got the final minutes of Old Complications assassination- his internal 'flight recorder', if you will, and the recordings that the killers were making for proof of the kill."
"It wasn't much of a contest, until they added locals to the mix. They knew him, inside and out. Afraid of fire, Hunter-Home has noticeably less oxygen in the atmosphere, partial pressure Oh two- never mind. Hunter fur burns fairly easily, and he got burned, badly, a long, long time ago. It grew out in white patches. He never had it fixed, used to get mad when some medtech 'corrected' it when they regrew or replaced some part that he'd left lying half the Galaxy away. 'What does a Ranger do with his fear? He embraces it.' Most of Old Complications' strays were rescued from fire, and the assassins knew that. That was enough of an edge, though that didn't save them, in the end. When my mother helped settle up, they only recovered two out of a team of six. One of them was immobilized in the medbay."
"Let's just say, I've got a very high benchmark." She smiled. "It's a Ranger thing."
(Yes, this does conflict with what I wrote in Old Complications ))
*** "What're y'doin'?" Frank asked, sleepily. Marianne was standing in front of the 'mirror' in the little washroom, water running.
"Praying."
Frank sat up, interested. That, and he didn't mind the view. "I thought you were washing."
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"That too. There's a ceremony." She laughed. "There's always a ceremony, we Rangers are full of sayings and doings… This is a litany, part of my religion, I guess."
Frank chuckled. "You don't know for sure? Anyway, I thought your religion was…" He gestured, vaguely. "Bein' a Ranger."
"That too." She smiled, and sang something in Ilshani.
(The Circle is made whole! That which was broken, is Reformed! That which was barren and dead, is Reborn!)
(The Work gives us meaning. The Work gives us hope. The Work goes ever on.)
"Huh… Ah, 'Surely goodness and, uh, something, will follow me all of my days.'" Frank was a little embarrassed.
"Yes, exactly like that. It is for beginnings, and endings. Many of us say it in the morning, and I sang those words over the Hunter clones when they were, uh, 'born.'" A shadow passed over her face and she shook it off. Very like some wild thing, a wolf, maybe.
"I'm hungry. Let's go get some breakfast, please?"
***
(Even Legends Die, yes, even they lay down their burdens and are still.) (But, you and I, have we really lived, that have not been touched by fire?)
23rd Psalm- The LORD Is My Shepherd The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
The following is from the Wisdom of the Rangers, found in the alien crew's possessions-
Mission Statement- To create and conserve life and the potential for sapience in the Galaxy. The rank and file of the Galactic Conservancy shorten this to four words, a catch phrase common to the Rangers, the Survey and the Engineers, "Create and Conserve Potential!"
There is some congruency between customs among the species of the Galaxy. Among the
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Rangers the first toast is "To the Work!" or "Create and Conserve Potential!" The second is always "To absent Friends." It is not uncommon for a group of Engineers to work together on the same project for decades, or centuries, but a Ranger never knows if he, she or it, is coming back from a mission.
"Know yourself, know your duty."
It is ironic and totally characteristic of Ranger philosophy that part of a ranger's duty is self- discovery. The motto has several variations-
"To know yourself, know your duty." "Know yourself to know your duty."
Many a recruit has fallen on the practice field, and been told, "There is no shame in failure, and no room to wallow in self-pity. Know that your brothers and sisters love you, and live for The Work, and will die for you. Now, pick yourself up and ask yourself-"
"Here I am, again. What do I do, now?"
"My teacher told me once, no, many times, the reward for a job well done, is a tougher job."
"Do you wish to burn brightly, and so light up the Galaxy?"
"There are never enough of us to do The Work. We must be efficient. In overcoming any obstacle, use precisely the needed amount of force, whether that is a kind word, or fifty grams of anti-hydrogen."
***
I still need to write a list of major philosophers, thinkers and such, major religions and systems of belief. Most of the people in the Conservancy have their own faith, religion, whatever, and expect and are given consideration, within reason (ah, there's the rub!). The largest single 'faith' is based on what the people of the Conservancy know about the Ilshani religion, which is sadly incomplete (it's a moth-eaten blanket, not the whole cloth, with holes you could fly Serenity through), mixed with about three thousand years of custom.
Mixed up in that is a set of values, starting with-
'It is a blessing to spend an entire life, or several lifetimes, bringing dead and sterile worlds to life.'
Because- A) All true wealth is biological. B) It's art! C) Bog/Brin/Joss tells me it's so. D) It's what my mother and father did, all of their lives.
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E) I want to be part of something bigger than myself. I want to have made something worthwhile. F) All of the above, plus a few more.
A central Galactic power is bad!
A) It's what causes the end of Galactic Civilization! B) The bigger the power, the blacker the rot. Power is evil, wanting power for itself is sick. C) Thou shalt not control a person! All authority is by consent and agreements for anything dissolve after the goal is achieved.
And so on... They mean well, but trip over contradictions as often as any society. Somehow this one has managed for a long time. -Vince
***
What most people did not know about Frank Costigan is that he was a decent sketch artist. He'd never had any formal training, he just did it, anyhow. He used pen and any paper that was handy, and often enough, it was just a crude map, a layout of the defensive positions, weak points and the like, but he did draw faces, from time to time, and he found the finger-painting utility of the ship's computer vastly absorbing. The trick of it was to draw coarse details, then zoom out, and never, ever, be afraid to discard a failure.
There were lots of times in his life, when he should have followed that principle.
"What'cha drawin'?"
Frank looked up and saw that Dee, Dorotea, was studying him. She couldn't see the picture; it was eyeballs-only and privacy protected, but he still jumped a little.
"Nothing, just something I was thinking about."
Frank stared at the little girl in his drawing. She had been very pretty, he supposed, before. He had never met her, in this life, and he didn't expect to, after. He wasn't at all sure that there was a heaven, although it was good to have something to halfway believe in, and he'd always liked singing the songs.
He considered finishing the drawing, but the ruined side of her face was in shadow, and that was enough detail. The spray of blood and brains from a stray round could stay in his head. Costigan considered, then saved it to the nightmare file, where it had company.
He saw that Dee was still staring at the table where he'd traced the lines, looking as if she could see the sketch he'd just sent to where ever it went, when it went, and he asked her, "How about some pancakes?"
"Sure!"
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***
"Of all the people for Dee to be hanging out with, I never would have expected her to seek out Costigan..."
Alex looked around, and said, "What's he done, this time?"
Andrea shook her head. "He hasn't done anything," she said, and was compelled to add, "Yet." With Costigan, it seemed like it was always just matter of time before he did something, and half a dozen voices would sing out, "Costigan!"
She smiled. Earthbound's Junkyard Dog, that was Costigan. It was surprising, but he grew on you... like a fungus.
Alex looked up. "Did you say something?"
"He's... always getting hurt."
"He's not a malinger, whatever else you can say about him. Rude. Crude. Obnoxious. I just think he's trying too hard, for some reason." Alex shrugged.
"Too damn hard. Wonder why?"
***
"Tonight's movies are Second Hand Lions and..." looks embarrassed. "Steel Magnolias." (catcalls, booing) "Sorry guys, the ladies are voting as a block."
"Don't blame the man, People! We had to institute a little strategic voting. The man of principle over there would not play ball."
(sotto voce) "Play ball? 'Principle?' What I see here is a damn fool who's still got his balls and his pecker, but he ain't getting any action..."
(Chorus) "Shut it, Costigan!"
***
(This is from later)
“Captain Kangaroo!”
Mark Chandler nearly fell out of his chair laughing, but Kenneth Graham heroically stifled a chuckle and said, as sternly as possible, "Julia! I said 'Kangaroo Court'. It seems I really shouldn't have said that much. Calm down!"
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"I don't care! Tin-plated dictator..." Julia Clancy growled, and glowered at the door, daring it to open.
Mark coughed discreetly, and shared a look with Ken. "I don't think we're going to get anything much done, just now. We'll have another go at it after we eat dinner, okay?"
"He didn't even read our draft!"
Without saying anything about it, they split up when they reached the Mess. Ken saw Beatrice Farnsworth, and would have joined her, but Alex Freeman waved him over to where he sat with Andrea Price and Steve Garrett. Julia sat with Moose and Linda, who didn't seem to mind, much. Mark had a seat by himself, but he was pleasantly surprised when he was joined by Bea.
The gravity kept going away, and coming back, as they went in and out of inertialess drive, but they say you can get used to anything.
"To what do I owe this honor?" He noted that Julia seemed to be calmer, now, with her friends. Almost half of Security was talking to Ken, and he had a good idea what about.
"I didn't want to sit alone, and I didn't want to talk to Ken again, although that doesn't seem to be a problem," Bea said, glancing at the table in question. "Is this that mutiny we heard so much talk about, two weeks ago?"
Mark very carefully swallowed and put his drink down. "No. Ah, is the crew that upset?"
She didn't answer right away, and seemed intent on toying with her food. "People don't know what's going on. We're going to be home soon, but all this mess with Brandi and that Ranger woman and Costigan, it's unsettling. Why did Brandi do whatever it is she did? Why did Costigan run off with that Ranger back to Sparrowgrad, when the rest of us are going home?" She looked over at Ken, then at Mark. "I heard that you three were working on some sort of agreement, Ship's Articles, whatever they are exactly, and are at odds with the Captain. Can we trust him to do the right thing by us?"
Mark tried, but he couldn't meet her eyes. "He always has."
"So far." Mark winced. "Excuse me." She got up and drifted over to where the little meeting with Ken was breaking up, and she sat down with him. Mark wasn't hungry anymore, and dumped what was left into the recycler on his way out. At least Julia and Ken were enjoying their dinners. Sawyer was just announcing the movies.
"Tonight we've got 'The Fifth Element', followed by 'Unbreakable.' I don't pick 'em folks... You do!"
***
Their first glimpse of Premier Yarborough was of him on his knees, praying with an Ekaterinan
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Roman Catholic priest. He looked ashamed of himself as he stood up, and the priest shook his head sadly at this before withdrawing. The Premier offered them each a drink, falling back onon impeccable manners as a delaying tactic.
"How bad is it?" Ranger Marianne Boyle finally asked him. Frank Costigan stood, his vodka ignored.
"Half of our little fleet, gone. Most of our new allies got back, but they're in no shape to fight another battle, this soon. But…"
"Yes?" Frank and Marianne found that they'd spoken together.
"We took 8,000 slave soldiers out of Hell." There was pride, in that much, at least.
"So many," Frank breathed. He thought, 'Moose would be beside himself, to write a song about that!'
Marianne looked to Frank, then began. "I have a message for you, Premier, and another for Captain Davilla. Part of the message to you is the Ranger ship in orbit…"
"Yes. I had supposed as much." Bitterly. It was totally unworthy of him, and Marianne faltered. She was surprised to realize that was she ashamed for her part in revealing the secret little human colony to the wider Galaxy, or at least, to the Conservancy. She began again.
"Where is the Korolev? I need to-" She stopped. The Ranger had seen that agonized expression before. In the mirror.
"The Korolev is gone?" Frank asked quietly. "How did it happen? Brandi will need to know."
"The rescue mission, to the slave market world that Korolev scouted for us, went better than we'd had any right to hope for. We took control, captured ships, lifted 6,500 plus, and were waiting for the ships to return for a second wave, when the Markov showed up."
"Our warships loaded up, overloaded, and withdrew to the wormhole. I am given to understand we gave a good accounting of ourselves. Then, as the last of the ships went through, the Markov ran through our lines and put a warship through the wormhole, to take both ends at the same time, before the last of our ships could get away. We think that they thought to force a surrender, take more prisoners and get more intelligence that way."
"One of our ships targeted the antimatter pile of one of the Markov vessels and that took out the wormhole." He sighed and considered his vodka. "We don't know how things turned out on the far side."
***
The last few minutes of the People's Space Vessel Sergei Korolev-
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A Markov boarding party was advancing up the corridor in good order, and picking off the mostly un-armored spacers, when Metzov popped up among them, out of an access panel, throwing Molotov cocktails and screaming in Russian. "Die, fascist pigs, d-"
The ship shook violently as enemy fire hit, once, twice, three times. Power went out, power toto shields and to weapons. The Chief Engineer found the problem easily enough, a power conduit with three meters missing, along with hull and Number Four Fusor. The only remaining reactor was isolated from the power grid. Rerouting would be tricky and dangerous.
"Be careful, Chief-" said Lt. Isabella Borodin, assisting Chief Engineer Davilla.
Zorch! The sound was like a hundred thousand mosquitos being zapped. Gravity guttered out and the burning, grinning corpse tumbled over and over, it's lips skinned back over cracked and scorched teeth. Isabella realized that her lips felt sticky and tried not to think too much about that. She grabbed hand-holds and pulled herself forward, pushing the smoking body, fire dying in weightlessness, out of the way.
"Excuse me, Ch-" She swallowed a sob and got to work. Concentrate! Duty. Ship. Home.
Up on the bridge, power and gravity soon came back, to the cheers of crew. Captain Davilla spoke shipwide, "Good work, Uncle! Now we hit them back." He was too busy to notice that he was not answered.
A Markov cruiser was attempting to follow her sister ship through the wormhole, and Davilla highlighted it. "A little sharp-shooting, if you please, Gospodin Baccarin. Target that hole in her hull. It's right by her antimatter pile, and that should have the desired effect."
"Aye, aye, Captain." The weapons officer grinned as he made it so. "That for Sparrow, you ugly bastards!"
The explosion did, indeed, have the desired effect, taking down the wormhole leading from this star system and eventually back to Sparrowgrad. It also ripped into Korolev. On the Bridge, shrapnel tore through crew and equipment alike, before the ceiling opened up, venting into space. Unlike in movies, the effect was not to cause crew to explode; skin is quite sufficient to hold a bit more than 14 pounds per square inch of pressure. The unconscious died without oxygen, the dead didn't care, and those still conscious had a little time to consider their fate.
Captain Davilla found himself strapped into his command chair after the hurricane of air had boiled into space. He was going into shock and wondered why he felt pain in his left wrist when he saw that that arm now ended above the elbow. There was something in his left eye, too, but that didn't matter, he was so tired... No! he thought. I've got so many people counting on me. The crew, Katya and Alexei, Big Ears and the Premier. Brandi!
As he blacked out, a darkness filled the hole in the ceiling, and the wind roared into his ears.
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***
Captain Paolo Davilla woke in pain, his mind sluggish. The Markov around him, doctors, nurses, and technicians, were blurry, surreal hippo-centaurs, but his uncle was clear and standing by hisis bed. He also realized he was seeing with one eye, his right.
"Awake, good. You may have figured this out, but I'll tell you plainly, I'm dead. Of course you know this, subconsciously, 'coz you're having a heart-to-heart with me while you're a half-dead prisoner." His former Chief Engineer beamed at him, idiotically smug.
"You did good, boy, and I'm proud of you, proud of our crew! I'm even proud of that maniac, Metzov, who burned up a squad of shock troops and got us shot to hell and gone for it. I mean, really, they're going to think we're crazy for going around starting fires on purpose on a space vessel..."
The world tilted, swung out of focus. "Whoa, there, nephew. Listen! You know this too, but I'm going to prattle on with a little un-asked for advice before I go, okay? Keep your head about you. You're still alive, and that's not bad, considering the alternative." He cackled. "I kill myself... Anyway, you've got a couple of breaks, work them hard. Don't give up! Hell, you're on their Command Carrier, now, and you always were a clever, not to mention lucky, boy."
He looked over his shoulder. "Alright! I'm coming! Damn, you're in a tearing hurry, for an athiest, Metzov..." He reached down and squeezed Paolo's remaining hand. "Goodbye. I love you, boy. And, oh, yeah, I almost forgot, why don't you ask that cute little girl to marry you? What was her name, again?"
He was gone. Paolo realized he was crying, and cared not a bit. He licked his dry lips and spoke.
"Brandi."
***
"If the mopping up is complete, inform the captains to prepare for movement orders. How long since the courier left for Homeworld, and what is it's current ETA?"
"It shall be done, Sky Marshall. The courier left seven hours ago, and should reach Homeworld within the hour."
"I want to be gone before there is time for a reply. The Navigator is to plot us a minimum time route through the wormhole network to Earth. The time for cautious action is long past." And the situation in the Capitol is decidedly dicey, Princess Atoshka thought to herself. "I will speak with this prince of the Humans now."
"It shall be done, Sky Marshall."
There was a manual for interrogation and torture, and it was sure not to include healing the
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prisoner, cleaning him up, nor putting him back into a cleaned and repaired uniform, but the Sky Marshall had spoken, and thus it was. Princess Atoshka thought that the implications would not be lost on this one, and just possibly, courtesy was a tool of torture as well.
"Good day to you, Prince-of-the-Humans." The translator turned her words into Russian, which she spoke, as well as English, and, of course, Ilshani.
The prisoner lifted his half-empty left sleeve, pinned up, and grinned. His good eye was bloodshot, his face-fur was growing out and there was vacuum-burn, the sign of broken blood vessels, both there and on the back of his hand.
"The Prisoner is making some sort of gesture, Sky Marshall, but I don't understand. Surely, without a hand?"
"He only needs one digit for that one, Translator."
The man was rasping something, there some lung-damage but it was healing, and the Translator, embarrassed, stumbled along. "Fornicate with a horse, err, river-horse..."
"Hippopotamus, Translator. Leave us. I will speak with this one alone." As he went, she added, "And brush up on your English, as well." She turned to Davilla. "Prince Davilla? I am Sky Marshall of this Expeditionary Force, Princess Atoshka for the Autocrat. Is there anything which you need?"
Cautiously, in a whisper, he spoke. "I am Captain Paolo Davilla. If Commodore Metzov is dead, I suppose that I am the highest ranking officer of the People's Navy in local space. I need to know-" He closed his eyes, and then open them again. "Please, how are my people?"
Ah, she thought, I have him. "There are survivors. I will provide you with a list, and you may speak to them, if you wish. Later, we can discuss certain political matters. Understand, we bear you no ill will." Like hell, she thought. Three battle cruisers and another lost beyond the wormhole! Plus battle damage to the remainder of her fleet. Damn them all! "We respect your courage and martial skill. There is a place for you in the Imperium, if you so choose."
Two more, careful words, enunciated through pain. "My ship?"
"The Sergei Korolev? I'm sorry, captain, but that was a loss. There is no way we could get it underway in time and under no circumstances could I in good conscience put a prize crew on her at this time." Not that there had not been volunteers, both to scuttle and to take her back to Homeworld as a worthy battle honor. Mentally, she shook her head. Her people were such fools, sometimes.
The man had seemed to settle into himself. This had affected him, as defeat and imprisonment had not. Interesting.
"I must leave you for now, but when you are ready, you may speak with your people, Prince
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Davilla. Good day to you."
***
Marianne received a comm from the Ranger ship and took it out in the hall, leaving Frank alone with Premier Yarborough for a while. The Green Beret had sat uncomfortably in his seat for half a minute before blurting out, "I'm sorry for your loss."
"Thank you. I'm having a little trouble dealing with it-" He looked out onto the Peace Bridge. Snouts and humans were draping it with ropes of woven flowers in the early morning light. "Actually, I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with the loss of Captain Davilla. Paolo was like aa son to me. I should, perhaps have told him that, but I didn't want to play favorites. I had thought that he would be... he could be the one to take over for me."
He nodded to Marianne. "What about you and her?" She was talking excitedly into the air, beyond the half-opened door. "From what little I know of Rangers, they travel light." His smile was sad.
"She wanted something from me- and no, not just that sort of thing. I was surprised to realize I wanted it, myself. And, well, she needs someone to watch her back, and keep her from... hunh."
"Quite." Yarboroughs' mouth turned up in a smile. "Watch her back and keep her from throwing her life away in the service of her people. You'll do, I think."
"Show me!" Marianne poked her head back into the room. "I'm terribly sorry, Premier, but something has come up..."
"Very well, Ranger Boyle. Run off and do whatever it is, then be sure to tell me what it was that really brought you back here." Marianne and Frank looked at him with surprise. "Go, go!"
A short runabout hop later, they set down on a beach east of there. The sun, Krasnaya, was an hour past daybreak and very slowly making it's way towards noon. The beach was full of sea monsters, come up from the surf to sun themselves on the rocks. An Oddity danced up to them. "How did you know?"
"A feeling. Someone described the sea monsters to me, after we left, and I looked at some views of them. Eight fins, when the dominant body plan here is vertebrate quadrupeds, like Earth, actually. Furry, warm-blooded, carnivores." Her smile was radiant. "The Universe is kind." She hugged Frank for joy and stole a kiss before she ran ahead.
She stopped before a youngling, and growled at it in Hunter. "Who, what are you?"
It reared up to her height, teetering precariously on its' hind fins, and roared proudly back. It could barely make itself heard over the roars and barking of the older sea monsters. "I-we are Hunter!" Then it went over on its’ back with a yelp.
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***
There was a she-wolf who traveled with us a while; A motley Company, lost in the woods, and far from our homes. She was a strange wolf who walked on two legs, And her People were likewise strange, For they seemed as demons to us. Some went on three legs, or four, more even, And some rolled along on three wheels. Their minds had strange shapes, And they thought strange thoughts. But they loved her, and she, them, Even if she was nearly alone among her People. A wolf or demon, who walked like us, But thought like them, and fought like them. It was not her task to put us on the homeward path, But she was our path-finder, even so. And when our Company was set to leave the Wilderness, She turned aside, alone until I followed her.
***
Alex went to see Ken right after breakfast. He 'handed' him a virtual copy of the free verse posted to the wall in the Mess.
"Did you write this?"
"No, actually, I was going to ask you."
"Hell no! Things are bad enough, without rubbing the Boss' nose in this."
They stood around for a minute, before Andrea joined them. "Did you?" "Did one of you two?" they said, all together.
"Yeah, I didn't expect it would be that simple."
"What about Costigan?" Andrea and Alex just looked at Ken without saying a word. He nodded, "Yeah, okay, stupid idea. I mean, he's never surprised us before, why would he now?"
"Hey, sarcasm isn't going to help. Costigan would never say a damn thing, he's kinda closed- mouth about stuff." Alex said, but Andrea rolled her eyes.
"He confided in you, before he went to Brandi! Still, I don't think so, either. This is somebody else."
***
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(I should clean this mess up, but right now I've got a powerful need to write about Marianne's family, the Rangers and Costigan)
Kevin found Karen was sitting in a beach chair, facing the Sea of Dreams. He went to join her."You're up early."
Kevin leaned down and kissed Karen on the forehead. She looked up and murmured, "Kev," coming back from wherever she had been, so deep in thought. It was just before dawn, and there was a readiness, and eagerness, to be. Or maybe it was just a vibe off of Karen, her energy, even a little of the darkness she struggled with, always.
That darkness had been a little stronger, a little more more pronounced, lately, since the death by suicide, of Dr. Ixlee, Oddity, former head of the First Born Project, and avenger of her dead kids. The Markov, or, actually, the Autocrat's Immortals, had seen to it that the Hunter species stayed extinct, and Dr. Ixlee had created what the media was calling the First Born Virus, as revenge. She had killed thousands of Markov children and a few of the elderly, including the Autocrat. But not hundreds of millions, because a few key people had acted decisively.
While she was in Militia custody, she had had help, to suicide, in the traditional manner. Kevin knew, without being told, that Karen had provided Ixlee with the metabolic accelerant. The flesh had seemed to melt off of the fat, maternal-mode Oddity, who had spawned a half-dozen young. Not the fat grubs, but half-starving spawn. She had then held one to a major vein and let it feed.
Kevin looked up at the stars, and wondered, for the thousandth time, knowing the skittish, pacifist Oddities so very well, how anyone could call them cowards. They embraced life, and death, just as bravely as any other species in the wider Galaxy.
He saw that Karen was looking at him, and they reached out to each other, interlacing their fingers.
"He's a good man; I like him, already," Kevin said, as if changing the subject. What they had not spoken of, lay between them, for another time. When she was ready.
"Frank Costigan, American Green Beret. Abducted," and she rattled off a date and place, in Iraq, and, Scout to the core, he made a note of the geography. "Presently a security officer with Earthbound; disciplined, repeatedly, for lack of discipline, including, recently being AWOL with our daughter on... Ekaterina." The place meant something, to her, and she paused. "His fellow crew-mates, stuck up for him, and like him, although he is known to be 'rude, crude and obnoxious.'"
Kevin laughed. "He speaks his mind, without editing, when he should." He pulled her fingers to his lips, and kissed them. "He loves her, and she, him. They are good for each other, like a certain other pairing I could mention..."
"Romantic!"
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"Guilty." He sobered. "Karen, love doesn't make the worlds go around, but it does make the journey worthwhile."
"I know. I want her to be happy, but..."
"Yes?"
"We lost her, once. I will not lose her, again."
As father and husband to Rangers, Kevin had made his own peace with the danger. But, oh yes, he shared with her the desire for their daughter to live and be happy. They disagreed on how.
The Ranger beside him knew how to let go; death was always with a Ranger, hers or those around her she sought to protect. She had let go her daughter, once, and she had been returned. It was unfair that Karen should do that and have to contemplate losing her daughter again, ever.
"Are you crying?"
"Just a little sand in my eye. God, what a beautiful sunrise..."
***
Frank Costigan, Marianne Boyle, and the rest of the Boyle clan, were staying at a little beach hostel on an island in Ilshans' Sea of Dreams. It was a vacation for Marianne and her dad, plus a family reunion of sorts, and because the Directorate of Transportation had brought Marianne's brother, Thomas, to Ilshan, after slow-tracking the second wormhole project. Now DoT had a mission for him involving a unique wormhole, and Frank had had a front row seat to Boyle family politics. The Greats, Marianne's great grandparents, had watched, interested but accepting, from the sidelines. Tom's dad, Kevin, had been happy for his son, and worried, too, but used to it, what with both a wife and daughter in the Rangers. Momma Boyle, and Little Sis, had both tried, unsuccessfully, to get added to the mission. Helen, Marianne's sister-in-law, was pretty mad. Daughter of Scouts and a vivaforming ecologist, she'd wanted to go look at an entirely new world, completely outside known space, but was staying put with Honor.
The first morning, Costigan woke up to a strange roasting smell; not peanuts or popcorn, but it did remind him of those. Marianne was already up, and fussing with her nephew. She had been up for a while, and wet from a swim. She smiled up at him, but turned back to feeding the baby, and thinking. Costigan was feeling uncharacteristically thoughtful, himself, and mumbled some Kipling under his breath.
The bachelor 'e fights for one As joyful as can be; But the married man don't call it fun, Because 'e fights for three --
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/married_man.html
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His stomach grumbled, and he followed his nose to the kitchen. Breakfast turned out to be fruit, leftovers, and a puffed grain, hot and toasted, served with a lemony sweet not-honey, which is what they called it, and he wisely decided not to ask. It ate; yes indeedy, it did. One of the fruits was orange, covered with suspicious blue fuzz; it tasted like cream cheese and the fruit preserves that his grandma used to make, before they gave up the farm. It had the texture of a ripe tomato, and Frank had two.
It was Marianne's brother, TJ, who made the puffed and toasted grain. It had soaked over night and he stirred it in what looked an awful lot like a wok. Costigan suspected parallel evolution, like tools for like jobs. His wife Helen was looking on as he did so, half-asleep, drinking fruit juice as if it were black coffee.
"Honor kept me up half of the night, but I got a little sleep, at least,” she said to Costigan, and inclined her head to her husband. “He was up all night, briefing in on the mission, but he's full of energy, and I'm not," she grumped. "I hate morning people!"
"Then why did you marry into a family of them?" TJ leaned over and they kissed.
Helen smiled ruefully. "I don't seem to remember..." They kissed some more, with the two older children making embarrassed, good-natured noises, and Costigan leaned back and took it all in. In a word, it made him homesick. The smell of burning puffs interrupted them.
Not for the first time, it occurred to Costigan, that these fine people were human, but alien; of the Conservancy, of the 'Cee', with very different assumptions about things. They enjoyed life and worked very hard. Costigan found much to admire in them. TJ took some breakfast out to his parents, sitting outside in some beach chairs on the sand. Frank washed the dishes after seeing to it that Marianne got something to eat. Then he went out to join Marianne's parents, facing the morning sun. They were holding hands, fingers interlaced, but the man stood as Frank took a seat in a chair on the other side of Karen.
"I've got a meeting with the Powers That Be, very unofficial; see you later." Their fingers parted with reluctance.
He loped off like a coyote or coy dog that Cotsigan had seen once. Not so much with a purpose, as with the resignation to put one foot in front of the other, all damn day. It made Costigan feel tired, just watching, and he looked over, sheepishly, at Karen.
"I just don't seem to have any ambition, this morning."
"Sit a while... I've a few things I want to say," Karen told him, smiling.
Costigan sat up straight. "Yes'm."
Part of it was that this impressive woman was his potential mother-in-law. And part of it was her rank, the equivalent of a major. Her primary MOS was 'teacher', somewhere halfway between a
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drill sergeant and a Jedi Master.
Costigan had seen her in action on the practice field, and she had two modes. Reactive, full of poise and grace, with a tempo that started out deceptively slow; and full on attack, teeth bared, coming straight through your defenses as if they weren't even there. 'Oh-ssa', Ilshani battle- dance, and 'Gresh', a Hunter martial art she had learned from her Teacher, Old Complications. The word meant, literally, 'pounce', and he had a vision of three quarters of a ton of tiger-centaur, pouncing; in a word, heart-stopping.
Karen made a few brush-strokes in the air with her fingertips, on a page only she could see. High Temple Ilshani, the old characters for the old tongue, for a people a long time dead; Frank recognized 'morning'. A horizontal slash, then an arc for half a sun-disc poking over the horizon, and two sets of rays; three curved fingertips dragging lines on the right and then the left. The rules for brush-strokes and writing the Ilshani script were bottom up, right to left, center out, and near to far. She was left-handed, like her daughter, and like the Ilshani had been, too. Seeing his interested look, she said, simply, "Journal."
Rangers, it seemed, were compulsive diarists, and kept concise and frequently updated mission logs. Marianne had told him, when he asked, "For the next Ranger, if it should fall to them to finish the mission." Like so many things about the Conservancy, it was a strange mix of optimism, fatalism, and idealism.
"I am Conservancy, and I am Ranger; and so my family is very precious to me. 'All true wealth is biological.'"
"I may have heard that somewhere, before," Frank said, smiling. It was a founding principle of of the Conservancy, after all. Karen looked at him with a speculative eye, and chuckled.
"You'll do," she said, and it came to Costigan that Premier Yarborough had said very nearly the same thing, back on Ekaterina. But, do for what, exactly?
"My husband and son may get around to the 'shotgun' waving stage. Or not- that's not their style."
"But it is yours?"
"We... do things differently, in the Cee. You may have noticed?"
"Yes, that I have," Frank said, with feeling.
"My daughter... I almost said 'my student', and that would have been just as true. On Earth, and most places, a mother is a daughters' first and most important teacher. She is my heart's joy and my heart's work. My contribution, in no small part, to The Work." You could almost hear the capital letters.
"Your sacrifice to your gods?" Frank asked, confused. Again.
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Karen's face went stony. "No. There have been too many sacrifices. I want her to live." Bitterly, almost to herself, she added, "Any damn fool can find something to die for. Dying is..."
"Dying is easy. Living is hard."
The man and the woman shared a look, and she nodded.
"Good, you do understand. I knew you were, are, a soldier, from reading your file."
Costigan started, and Karen looked bemused.
"She is a Ranger. She kept detailed files and turned them in, when she got home." An expression of contented peace crossed her face, and was gone.
Frank shook his head. "Just don't tell Cap'n Clark..."
"Major Clark," Karen began, with the same expression of naked joy that Marianne had had when Prince Krell returned to the Rangers, "is a boy, with big dreams; who has already done great things. And, we'll turn him into a Ranger if it kills him..."
This time she had an evil little smile, very like the one Narice had made, that time she pulled a prank with Dorotea as her accomplice. Narice, and Moose, and the other crewman that they'd lost on Earthbound; they would be remembered, with honor, along with his other dead freinds. Shines the name, shines the name...
"I know that look, very well; Joy, regret, loss. People with whom you have shared your life; Laughter, and tears."
"They're not all dead. Just some of them..."
"Too many. One is too many."
They sat quietly, and the surf crashed like a slow heart-beat, and the wind blew, and time passed.
Honor, his orneriness, began to cry, somewhere in the beachhouse, protesting the inherent unfairness of the universe as loudly as possible. Frank winced, but Karen smiled and stood.
"Good lungs, on that one. Of course, he is just like her." She smirked. "I'll admit to being greedy; why don't you two make him a cousin and half-clone brother?"
Her gently mocking laughter trailed after her.
***
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Frank held the kid up and looked him over, but carefully, in case he was 'loaded'. "So, he's a clone?" The Clone Ranger, he thought, and decided not to share that particular Costigan-ism. He was learning. They were walking along the beach, and it all seemed normal, somehow.
"Yeah... Why do I get the impression that you're looking for the bar code?"
Frank started, and the baby chortled and swung, nearly connecting. "God, woman, will you please stop doing that! Do Rangers have Jedi mind tricks or something?"
Marianne reached over and lightly touched the baby's chest, above the heart. Honor grabbed her hand with both of his little fists, and held on tight. "He does have a very tiny transponder, about here. We like to always know where our treasures are."
Frank settled the baby in the crook of his left arm, and then brushed the hair out of her misty eyes with his right. Honor was still holding onto her hand. "Hey, that's turning into quite a shiner. His 'Orneriness' here has got a mean left hook. Gotta watch out for it."
"I'll live and learn. I always do."
Marianne looked out at the ocean, but it was perfectly obvious, even to Costigan that she wasn't seeing it. She made a face.
"I'm worried about him, Frank. He's my older brother, sure, but... We lost Moose and Narice, almost lost more, and just barely got out of that corner of the Galaxy in one piece. TJ's not a fighter."
"He's got three kids and Helen to come home to. He will. Plus, the ship he's going on, well, it does have some of the luckiest people I've ever met..."
"Yeah..." Marianne lightly kicked a seashell, something strange, like a conch shell with three points, into the surf. "Mom didn't want him to be a Ranger, after my grandfather didn't come back from Oolithi Drift. Thomas has always done what was wanted of him. He's never resentful, always cheerful about it. But I know he would have liked to have a little bit of an adventure. Now I guess he will. Just... you're a Green Beret, and I'm a Ranger. We both know a lot of dead people, and a few of them are people we've seen to, personally. Adventure is someone else, far away, in deep shit."
Later on, after their walk, Honor fed but fighting sleep, Marianne sang him a lullabye. Frank had heard bits of it, before, the Ilshani Lullabye from the Mother's Tale.
"(Sleep, youngling, have no fears, for your father walks the Stars!) (His shield arm is strong, and his sword swift and sharp,) (But, most important of all, his heart is full of love for us!)
(Sleep and Dream, youngling, of all that you will be and do.) (Will you captain a bright starship, and see all the worlds?)
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(Or build the starship well, and keep all who fly her safe?) (Maybe you will tell the tales, of brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers,) (Who dare, and strive and hope for the tomorrow that you Dream!)"
***
(This comes a lot later, in the story, but I may never get it all written down, so here's the Good Parts version...)
Geronimo?
The Vice Commandant was going sky-surfing before heading off on what would likely be aa suicide mission (but Rangers always go, anyway, always). He was a Trike, and he rolled, on three wheels, in his vacuum armor and loaded down with a parawing and a ballute, to the open outer door of the air-lock. It was used by those who maintained the Ring to go outside and inspect it; and also, certain foolhardy individuals who base-jumped from the Ring, free-falling from the edge of space.
He realized he was not alone, and turned. Ranger Marianne Boyle, and Frank Costigan, both on the rescue mission, and one of their old crew-mates from Earthbound, Alex Freeman. They likewise wore pressure suits and the rest of the gear, in day-glow pink, orange and electric blue, to his black and gold. Someone in Procurement was rolling around on the floor, about now, he wagered. The VC stifled his amusement, as well as his irritation, at being interrupted.
"I didn't know anyone else was planning to make a jump, today."
Costigan stepped carefully to within a foot of the edge, looking out and down, then backed up. The 'Apes' had a natural fear of falling, but Trikes, of course, did not. Fools among them claimed that Trikes were not afraid, that they had no fear, but that was nonsense. He was afraid; afraid of failure. No. He was afraid of not meeting the needs of his beloved Rangers. Of failing them, and the Conservancy.
"We thought that we would give it a try," said Marianne, dead-pan.
The Vice Commandant rubbed his brakes in amusement, and he saw, through their clear face masks, both men grit their teeth at what, to them, was an annoying sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard. "Be my guest."
Costigan and Freeman looked at each other, and Costigan waved Freeman forward. "Ranger, lead the way..." Alex was a US Army Ranger, or had been, before he was abducted. It was a long, long story, and now he was... AWOL? Alex flashed white teeth against dark skin, muttering good-naturedly, "Costigan, you bastard!" under his breath.
"Hey, I'm a Green Beret. I may need to teach someone how it's done, so, why don't you show me?" Frank smiled a good-old-boy, shit eating grin. "Uh, I believe 'Geronimo' is traditional?"
Alex smiled again, and ran out, off into the black sky fading into pale blue, shouting, "George 2525
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Washington Carver!"
Marianne turned, her back to infinity, facing Costigan and the VC. "I believe we do things differently, in the Cee..." She held out her right hand, palm up, and closed it, bringing it across her chest to thump lightly over her heart, and then she held it just an inch away, in the Roman salute used by Human Rangers. "See you..."
She fell back and out.
"Am I the only traditionalist, here? Let's see, 'Geronimo!', 'Banzai!', hmm..." It occurred to him that this was the highest diving board in the Galaxy. He smiled and ran out, tucking in and rolling.
"Cannonball!"
The Vice Commandant looked out at the stars, and then he rolled after.
***
The heuristic flight control computer determined that the nearly spherical surface of the falling human was over-taking the leading sky-surfers too quickly, and took guidance away from the user, curving out a much safer dozen measures from the two, who had matched levels, having more sense. Of course, the HFCC didn't actually express such an opinion, but, deep in it's logic processes, it was forming something which would do for an opinion, in a pinch. It tentatively handed guidance back to the user, with what, in a man, would have been deep regret.
Costigan opened up when he realized that he'd already blown past Marianne and Alex, but he didn't know what he was doing, and he was all over the sky before he leveled off, and the other two could safely approach.
"You really are one crazy son-of-a-twitch, Costigan," Alex said, shaking his head, and looking around for the VC.
"You told me you could fly!" Marianne cried, accusingly.
"Uh, I might have... told you what you wanted to hear," Costigan said, sheepishly.
"When we get down, there will be words, accompanied by sharp jabs, to ensure I have your complete and undivided attention!"
"Will you two get a- Hey, where is he?" Alex said. "Woah! Was that him?"
Wheels tucked in, falling like a tetrahedron, a four-sided pyramid of triangles, the Vice Commandant dropped past them, over two hundred meters away, falling at over 300 meters per second, and already moving laterally at over 50. They were still a long way from deploying their ballutes, and then their parawings. He was falling away from them and moving north towards a
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great gash in the surface of Ilshan. Henneshaneh Gorge was all that was left of the center of Ilshani culture and power; it, and the river that cut through it, emptied into the Sea of Dreams.
"Is he trying to kill himself? Isn't that a little, I don't know, redundant?"
"Costigan!"
Marianne shook her head. "No, at least I don't think that's what he's trying to do... I should have known!"
"What?" Costigan and Freeman said, together.
By way of an answer, Marianne began to chant.
"'Gods above, if you desire a death, then cast your eyes on me. I am ready; I am worthy! Let go of your anger and your rage, and be satisfied. Is my flight not worthy, in your eyes? Have I not dared, do I not stand between my troop, and your bloodlust?'"
"He's offering himself as a sacrifice, to win the favor of his Gods," Marianne said in a small voice.
"We-ell, if it's just an offering, no harm in that. Kind a kooky, if you ask me," Alex said. "Don't you Rangers-"
"It's not yet even begun," Marianne interrupted. "'I am ready, I am ready, take me, do not take me, readiness is all.'"
The Vice Commandant finally popped his ballute above the Gorge, slowing just enough to deploy his parawing, and then he turned to make his run down the Gorge, over thirty twisting kilometers to the sea.
"That magnificent bastard! He's doing over five hundred klicks!" Alex let out a whoop.
Costigan was muttering something.
"...for the ashes of our fathers, and the temples of our Gods." In an awed voice, he said, "Marianne, I have to do this-" and then he tucked up in a ball again, and fell faster.
"Oh shit- Costigan!" Alex cried, and then, a second later, "Marianne!"
"You're not a part of this, Alex," Marianne said, as she dropped away faster and faster.
"You're all crazy!" But he tucked up, as well, and if he trailed them more cautiously, it would not be said that a US Army Ranger could not do what a Green Beret, or a woman and an alien, had done.
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XXVII
Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: "To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods,
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lays_of_Ancient_Rome/Horatius
***
"Even the East German judge would have given you at least an 8.0 for that landing," Frank Costigan was saying over his shoulder to Alex, as he went through the doot to the Vice Commandant's office. "It had a kind of poetry to it, like..."
He saw who was waiting in the room, and he stopped dead in his tracks, causing a bit of a traffic jam. "Good evening, Ma'am," he said brightly. "Come in, sit down, and shut up," Ranger Karen Boyle growled. Marianne and Frank did as they were told; Alex was forced into the room to clear a path for the VC, and then he slid sideways, making a break for it.
"I beleive that your commanding officer, in the Space Force, is looking for you, Sergeant Freeman," Karen said, sweetly.
Alex saluted by reflex, turned and fled. The door irised closed with a soft chuff.
"Ranger-" The VC began, and shut up at the glare from his old teacher.
"You, you should know better!"
"It's part of my rel-"
"Spare me your rationalizations," Karen snapped.
"You know, I am your superior-"
"Superior at what? Pulling daredevil stunts?" Her eye fell on her daughter and Costigan, holding hands and looking miserable. "You two, get out of here. I'll find you, when I'm finished with him."
When they had escaped, the room was even more deadly quiet than before.
"I will not allow you to bludgeon me with this incident so that you can get what you came here 2828
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"And what would that be?"
"A spot on the mission, and your daughter and her lover, off of it."
Karen nodded, and walked away to the wall, then spun around. "I should not even have been able to get here before you left, you know..."
"Other teams will reach Dooahlah and Jahlti before us; we are the follow on team, which means we get the triaged landing zones. The toughest jobs, the most forsaken, forlorn hopes."
"Wait, what about Darodd?"
The Vice Commandant shook his head, a human gesture he'd learned from his teacher, long ago. "Overwhelmed. The Outsiders breached the wormhole from the Agoa Finger; not only are they taking over one of the Oddity Homeworlds and indoctrinating the demon-form Oddities as Outsiders, the Commandant and Taskforce One..."
The Vice Commandant had no words for the grief he felt, and Trikes do not cry. It was all he could do not to curl up, and tuck his mantle and eyestalks down behind his wheels, and hide from a desolate world.
"No one knows?"
"Director Jang felt-"
"Gods and Ancestors, damn him to hell! Panic? We need to evacuate...let's see..."
"Thirty worlds. Or we need a fleet such as the Galaxy has not seen, since the fall of Ilshan."
"How about the Grand Fleet of the Spinward Rim Alliance, the various Free Janissary fleets, and the Markov Imperium?"
"Maybe, but we need the Markov moving now..."
Karen punched up a link on the VC's comm. "Let me call my ride..."
"The Autocrat is here? With a fleet?"
"As it happens," Karen said, grinning like a thief, "Autocrat Krell is a Ranger."
***
The Autocrat would not have believed that the Markov Imperium would ever have been made welcome again, on Ilshan, but crisis made for strange bedfellows. Part of it was that he'd come inin the company of the Ranger he'd asked to open- well, a school was not the right word, but maybe 2929
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times were changing, and it was. He personally did not remember the apprenticeship a Ranger recruit went through, because the real 'Ranger Krell' had died in the machinations of imperial politics. The actor who had stepped into his shoes, and his flesh, had studied his role, though, and he knew that a Teacher took on, as a general rule, twelve students, and then set the curriculum, and all other details, herself. School, for a recruit, was a movable feast, and Ranger Karen Boyle had moved it to Girreenjaya, the Markov Homeworld; and that was enough, for some.
The other reason was that the Outsiders were making short work of the worlds they fell upon, and only the Markov had forces in reserve to- do what exactly? Work a miracle?
Krell looked sideways, at his granddaughter, and he knew that he would move worlds for her, so, a miracle was not out of the question. He turned back to the Trike, and rumbled his amusement. "So, Vice Commandant, what would you like me to do for the Rangers, today?"
The Trike rubbed his brakes- Or was it her? He never really felt one way or another, about the Trikes, but humans tended to refer to them as male, for some reason.
"Thank you, Autocrat. I-" Trikes were not emotional, like Markov; to say that the Markov werere sentimental, was like saying that water is wet. But this one did seem, almost, to have at least one stout heart, and the blood of a hero flowing through its' veins.
"It is nothing, compared to what we must do, but, with your help, the Rangers may survive this, too."
Krell frowned. "I had not..." He glanced, again, sideways at his granddaughter, in black and gold, and he knew, suddenly, what it was to be a Ranger. For the first time since he'd survived that transport bombing that had taken the orginals' life, he knew. To become a dissident prince in the Markov Imperium had been fraught with danger, but he had served the Markov and the Imperium. A Ranger, now...
"Grandfather, my Teacher says- 'Death is a part of life, and sometimes the job, (The Work), is to do dangerous, deadly things, so that other people get to live.'"
And to think that he had been so happy that she was not following in her Father's footsteps, into the Autocrat's Immortals. Gods and Ancestors!
***
I don't know anything about duty and discipline; but I think about them and then I write space opera...
The arrangements were made, and the Markov went away, leaving the Trike and his old teacher alone in the Vice, no, the Ranger Commandant's office. Karen Boyle looked around; there were mementos of half a life-time spent in the Rangers. There was a holo of her third dozen, including herself, the new Commandant, and the rest of her family; Her father, for this was just before Oolithi Drift, her husband, her son as a toddler, and... Old Complications. She brushed atat something wet that fell into the holo, causing the emitters to blur; or perhaps it was her eyes. She 3030
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rubbed at them, tiredly. But there was still fight left in this old b- No, the time for a frontal assault was over. Come at this sideways...
She turned to the Trike, and got down on her hands and knees, face turned away. "Please..."
She heard the squeak of wheel struts and looked over to see that the Trike had made himself even lower, wheels turned out flat, body pressed to the floor.
"It is not right for a teacher to make herself lower than her student, or to beg for what I cannot give."
"You bastard!" she lashed out, jabbing below one stubby eyestalk. It flopped over, not permanently damaged, just useless to him for the duration. Plus, it hurt, a lot...
"Yes, every Trike, ever hatched, billions upon billions, is a bastard, without a father or mother's love. A very small few reach juvenile-stage, become self-aware, and get fostered into a troop. Imagine what it is like, to look around, at so many other species, and then look into ourselves, and see what we lack. The pain of that emptiness is awful."
"You, you can't make me feel sorry for you, you, monster! I want my baby girl to live!" She struck him again.
"I will not force her. 'Thou shalt not control a person.' But she has volunteered, and you can't force her to stay, either."
"Please, those two will make such a fine team, someday..."
"They already are, and they are the tools I have, and so I shall use them for the mission at hand."
"Then at least take me, damn you!"
"I need you here, for cadre. To train recruits-"
"Why, if there isn't going to be a Conservancy!"
"There will be. I have to believe that, that there will be, or I could not send so many to their deaths, today."
There was nothing more to say; she had failed. Karen stood and walked to the door. It opened, and closed, and he was alone.
"Oh Teacher, I am sorry, so sorry, that I have failed you..."
How he had always envied the Oddities, whose aspect, within the Conservancy, was not coward, but nurturer. Of course, the Humans were special, for they combined so many things into such aa small package; warrior, soldier, daredevil, poet, protector, mother...
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One more motherless and fatherless Trike prepared himself to dare greatly, in the face of a cold, uncaring, universe.
***
The runabout was crowded, and the transport, before that, had held more Rangers than Costigan had ever seen in one place before. Rangers didn’t seem to go in for massed formations and parades; that had its place, but most Rangers were off, doing something, and not bonding, or whatever the psychological term was. The Green Beret knew that there were benefits to a uniform and to standing together, from time to time, but in recent times the Rangers had been too busy and spread way too thin for it, even if that meant that esprit de corps suffered.
Marianne got finished with the medic. He went back to the Commandant, who appeared to have developed Zanugian Flu or something else alien. Costigan said as much to Marianne.
“Zanugian Flu? No…” She dragged it out, then laughed. “Oh, that’s not a real disease, silly. It’s from role-playing games…”
Costigan winced. “Okay, I remember; I heard it from Moose. His Star Trek character would get it when he, the player, couldn’t make it for a game.” He pondered, mentioning this to Linda, the next time he saw her (not if he saw her, he didn’t live his life that way), and decided that, yes, hee would. “So, what’s he got?”
Marianne took a while to answer. “He’s allergic to Oddities,” She answered, somewhat mysteriously.
“Come again?” He might be a Trike, and Trikes didn’t get along with Oddities, but he was around them, all the time.
“The retrovirus we’re planning to introduce into the air and water; the ecology of Jahlti.” She was looking away, into the middle distance. “To turn demon-form Oddities into… Insiders.” She smiled, the open and happy smile that she had, despite ten years in the Rangers, or perhaps because of it. He'd once told her that her religion was being a Ranger. She was her mother’s daughter, and yet so very different.
It had turned out that the Oddities were demons, the Demons of Legend, the ones that had ended the Ilshani Florescence, the previous great flowering of galactic culture and technology. The worker-form, actually, and they had been left on Darrodd, Jahlti, Dooahlah, and all the other places, to demon-form them. They had failed, on Girreenjaya, the place of Gods and Ancestors, the Markov Homeworld, where, of old, lived heroes; victorious, glorious, heroes.
The Demons had been shock-troops, and the Outsiders were Nietzsche-an uber-demons, with a philosophy or idealogy at odds with the Cee, and with peaceful co-existence. They would turn and indoctrinate every Oddity they could, and shortly, there would only be Outsiders, throughout the wider Galaxy. Wholesale genocide.
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“We’re carrying the uber-factor; Demon-form Oddities will turn uber-demon, but with memories of being Oddities, and the freedom to choose. Insiders.”
“And he’s having a reaction?”
“A bad one; he’s nearly incapacitated, and he… almost died.” Marianne looked to her Commandant, and love and affection blazed on her face.
“But Trikes and Oddities… they don’t get along…”
“Not so much.”
“But why?”
“If any of us should fall- or rather, when some of us die…” “Demon chow?!”
“Frank, love, don’t ever change.”
Costigan thought about it for a moment, and then held out his arm. “Hit me!”
“Okay…”She kissed him, and went to talk with the medic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_Standing_Orders (Note the fictional version, a shorter read, and more fun, at the bottom of the entry- VLC)
***
"That didn't take long, at all," Costigan said. "Stretch could have pretended not to enjoy sticking me, though..." He added, darkly. The Bluehorn medic, with the Directorate of Transportation, smiled, displaying tusks that a wild boar would envy, and Frank gave him a friendly wave. "Sadist."
Marianne was laughing, quietly, at him. Life with Costigan was endlessly entertaining. Frank scowled, then he relented and chuckled. "Alright, so I'm- what's so funny, woman?" he said, as her chortles redoubled.
Marianne wiped a tear from her eye. "He's happy for us."
"Because we're probably about to die, but at least we have each other?"
"No; well yeah, that too, but..."
"Yes?"
Marianne looked up at him. Frank Costigan, age 37, white Caucasian male of Scots-Irish stock; a human male from Earth, born in St. Louis, MO. Hair, brown; eyes, blue; a broken nose and a set 3333
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of shrapnel scars made him look like trouble, which he was. A pretty good kisser, in her opinion; and one other thing.
"I've sort of been keeping this secret, and it's not fair to you, but I was pretty sure you'd make a huge stink about it, so..."
"It's better to beg for forgiveness, than to ask for permission..." Costigan said, befuddled. "But, what in God's name would you need- You. Are. Not." No question mark, no exclamations, just three words clipped out in a parade ground bark. His fingers and thumbs dug into her upper arms.
"Let go," she said quietly, and he did so. He turned away.
"Yeah, that's about what I thought you'd do." "Where I come from, a man and a woman talk about whether they are going to have a family, before they do."
"One of the natural outcomes of having-"
"Don't! Don't you..."
"Be an ass? You've got that covered."
"You... you know how I feel, about children."
"You like them. We can have one, or I can, and thank you so very much..."
"I'm just a convenient, uh, donor?"
"Now you really are being an ass, Costigan."
"I can't help it. I'm a father now. That means I put the kid ahead of every other consideration."
"Fair enough. The kid, the unborn baby girl, is five weeks. I'm not about to leave her anywhere, just now. You understand, what with the invasion and all. She's taking the same chances as her mom and dad."
"They could take her out, and, uh, bring her to term, in a machine?" Frank did not add, out loud, but his expression clearly said, "Ew!"
"If necessary. It's hit or miss, even with the medical technology of the Cee. Plus, I want her toto know her mom's heartbeat."
"But, she could die! You could..."
"Yes, she could, I could, you could, we could. Or maybe we won't. And if we don't, I'd like you
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to know that I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, and..." She traced his crooked nose. "I want what my Mom and Dad have, and my brother and sister-in-law have, with you."
"Are you planning to waddle off on any more missions, between now and, you know?"
"Probably not. But, if it comes down to dropping this kid in a landing zone..." She laughed at his expression, and kissed him. "I hope not."
"Why? You have complete control; I know that much. You chose this."
"A Ranger doesn't put things like this off, for tomorrow, because you just don't know how much time you have." She smiled, again; full of joy for life. "I want to share the Conservancy with her, like I've shared it with you. She'll be her own person, and make her own choices, but I hope that she will want to carry on the work, like her mom, and I hope, her dad. Whether or not she's a Ranger, or a Scout, or an Engineer."
***
The runabout put them down in a base camp in the middle of a wilderness preserve. The Rangers hustled off and the DoT personnel embarked what seemed like an example of every species of alien that Frank had ever seen, except for Oddities, of course. What was left of a Trike went on last, and the crew buttoned her up, and then she grabbed some sky.
Costigan and Marianne joined an impromptu briefing, in progress. The Commandant was asking questions and prioritizing, acquainting himself with the situation as he found it, not as it was in the reports. He saw them and shouted, "Stick with me!"
"The RalEnid have promised more ships; there are seven on orbit, ready to be filled with survivors. We will empty out the base camp and free up teams to go looking for more survivors. We will not be conducting recovery operations, is that understood?"
"Recovery? Of bodies?" Frank said to Marianne.
"Yeah. We've got our hands full, what with a few hundred thousand to a million non-oddities, and about a billion demon-form locals."
The Commandant raised his voice to reiterate the plan.
"Phase one is complete when we've rescued every living sapient being that isn't trying to eat us." There were public displays of amusement, each according to his, her, or it's species. Frank didn't laugh, though. Instead, he caught up Marianne's hand and squeezed it.
"Phase Two is the complete dissemination of the uber-form retrovirus, and the re-indoctrination of the native population. Phase Two begins immediately after Phase One, but if any of the uber- form Oddities attempt to communicate, let central know, soonest, and we may have to reshuffle priorities."
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"As always, we save as many as we can. Any questions?"
There were, of course, and Frank and Marianne found a spot to stretch out, spooned together against a warm inflated shelter. Marianne's hand lay across her belly, and Frank wrapped his arms around her, his hands on top of hers. He kissed her on the side of her neck, under the angle of her jaw, and breathed in. Not necessarily a flattering smell; sweat and day-old clothing, and her scent, of course. But that was what he wanted, just now.
(Just so you know, I was thinking of the image of Wash and Zoe, by the fire, in the victory party montage from Our Mrs. Reynolds , and Wash and Zoe's 'argument' (Zoe laying out terms, Wash accepting them ) ii) n Heart Of Gold. My space opera was never Firefly (its gots aliens, see!), but it was always heavily influenced by that series. (I love my Crew!))
***
It got dark, early, in this part of Jahlti. It was northern hemisphere winter, and a little snow fell as the two suns went down. Costigan walked the perimeter, edgy, while Marianne checked in. She came along with a couple of instant packs of grel stew. Frank’s stomach rumbled, even if the irony didn’t fail to register, but he liked grel stew, and they dug in.
“We’re in rotation; we’ll be up in about half an hour. The Commandant is taking a nap; that allergy-stuff took its toll, and he finally admitted that maybe he isn’t Old Complications…”
She stared off, in the gathering twilight, thinking, about Old Complications, of course. Costigan reached over and lifted her face; she looked at him, wryly, and asked, “What?”
“Tell me. I never get tired of stories about your ‘Ol’Cee’.”
“Alright… this is comfort food, by the way. We always had a bowl when he blew in, from wherever, usually… hurt, missing body parts, as often as not. Or ice cream, fudge ripple, and aa story about Ilshan.”
“Ilshan? Headquarters, and all that?”
“No, the Old Ilshan. He told me about Princess Henneshaneh, and the twins, and it was almost like he’d known them…”
A little distance away, a Markov, in Green and Purple, and a Bluehorn, in Black and Gold, were talking. The demons and ubers out in the wilderness wailed, a howled, like lost souls in agony. The Bluehorn looked sideways, and he smiled, toothily.
“The grel want their flesh…” It was what the Markov said, on the battlefield, as two armies prepared to wreck one another. The grel were to Oddities as rats were to humans, and served as scavengers. Clean grel scavenged the detritus of many a galactic starship’s life system, and it was the universal ‘mystery meat.’
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The Autocrat’s Immortal started, and she shrugged. “That they do.” After a beat, she added, “Let’s get to work.”
They moved off, and Costigan looked at the fence again.
“I’m a little worried about these swarming attacks we’ve been hearing about.”
Marianne nodded. “Me too.”
“I feel like I’m stuck in a zombie movie, or something. Hot zombies, like in 28 Days…” “The Sandra Bullock movie?”
“No, 28 Days Later, with that british chick who looks like our Zuzu…”
“Oh. Never saw that one.” Marianne shook her head. “I was neve a fan of these movies, not since I saw What Lies Within.”
“I don’t know that one,” Costigan said.
“It was one of Hojin Venn’s last productions, before he chucked it all, and joined the Cee. It is about Oddities, running amok. It was about this, and I am sure, now, that it was all part of The Mercy, and to keep the secret.”
Costigan stared out, where the darkness seemed full of monsters.
“Was it worth it? Four billion Oddities turning demon, or worse, all here at the heart of your civilization. A realist would…” He stopped himself, not from committing a ‘Costigan-ism’, but from speaking the truth, as he saw it.
“Would have killed them all, perhaps made it so that they would die easy, for all our sakes? Or maybe taken revenge, on the descendants of Demons. The Mercy was a conspiracy of Rangers and Scouts and the Directorate of Transportation, a conspiracy for good. You’ve said that being a Ranger is my religion; well it is, and I’m dedicated to fighting for every life, because every bit of potential is worth it. Every soul.”
And who is fighting for you? Or the Commandant? Costigan thought to himself. Of course, he did not think that he was a very clever or thoughtful man, but Frank Costigan sold himself short, on that point.
***
Rescuing aliens on an world turned inside out was not fun and games. Costigan had not expected it to be, but it took him to a place where he hadn't been for a while; life on a starship had been far removed from Iraq, where he'd originally been abducted, and now he was losing people, every day, even if they were people who didn't look like him, or even think like him, but they had his back, just the same.
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Some of the Rangers followed the numbers religiously; How many rescued, how many ships, estimated numbers of demons and ubers, and the casualties, dead and wounded. Marianne did not, and listened when he read them off, but never asked. After the count for rescued people passed five hundred thousand, he gave it up. The count for dead Rangers was seventy three, and climbing.
There were probably over a billion demon-form and uber-form Oddities on Jahlti, now, and after the first time Costigan ran into one, in a dark, damp and cold alley, he decided that, if it had been up to him, he'd have burned the planet down to bedrock. A few days later, when they brought in their first Uber freindly, he felt a little differently; he was still in favor of burning the cities.
Days became weeks, and weeks, months. Somewhere, out there, a battle raged between the Outsiders and the combined forces of the wider Galaxy. The Markov stubbornly held onto the worlds of their Empire, only it was a federation, again, with the Autocrat merely the first among equals. Costigan laughed his ass off, when he heard about that, but Krell was a good man, even if he wasn't a man, and not bad for a Markov, at that. Frank wondered what Alex and the Space Forces were up to, but, well he had a good idea, and he wished them luck. No. He wished them success, for there was no survival without victory.
***
"The Circle is made whole! That which was broken, is Reformed! That, which was barren and dead, is Reborn!
The Work gives us meaning. The Work gives us hope. The Work goes ever on."
Catholics went to Mass and made confession; Muslims said prayer, five times a day. Rangers, more often than not, rose in the morning, washed their faces, and recited a litany that was very nearly three thousand years old.
The Conservancy began on Ilshan; it began with Ilshan, when a consortium gathered capital and talent to study the dead world which had once been the home of deer-sized, lizard-like, centaurs. They had spent blood, tears, toil and sweat, and, in a few centuries, had rebuilt the orbital ring, learned how to bring a dead world back to life, and found meaning and hope in the work.
Marianne had told him that this was for beginning, and endings. Today, they said the words over one of her mother’s latest recruits, a grey male. His kind didn’t go in for funerals, but they did bring the body back, because something about the grey life-cycle lived on, even after passing through- Costigan put his hand to his face, rubbing his eyes and crooked nose, and muttered, under his breath, words that were comforting, to him.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for I am the meanest sumbitch in the Valley…”
Marianne chuckled, and hugged him. “Tough guy, I think I love you…”
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“What’s a hot-looking babe doing in an apocalypse like this, huh?”
“After a hard day of kicking monster butt, I like to relax with a little of this,” she breathed, and the universe went away for a while.
The Commandant had to rub his brakes, loudly, three times, to get their attention. He was laughing at them, in the manner of his species. All in all, he reflected to himself, it was turning out to be a good day. Except for the young Ranger, and that, sadly, was the cost of doing business. He made the sign of the Three Veils, three rolling gestures with his left hand, lifting three imaginary veils, and wondered whether the Grey had even been a member of the Temple. He practiced syncretism in his beliefs, like nearly every Trike, piling demons on top of Gods, on top of saints. He worshiped the Ilshani pantheon, in addition to his own set of godlings, who were really little better than powerful demons.
"If you two don't mind, I need a bodyguard; two, for preference. And what do I see, when I looked around? Two volunteers..."
“Where are we going?” Costigan asked.
“There’s a hospital, about three thousand klicks from here, on the west coast. I was told that it might have been where patient zero was first taken. I mean, patient zero, squared; we have reason to believe that it was the source of the entire outbreak, not just on Jahlti, but throughout the wider Galaxy. I’m going, and you’re going to watch my backside. And if you two start making out, I’ll watch, and start critiquing.”
“He’s joking, right?”
“Frank, Trike, remember? 'The most messed up species in the Galaxy'," she said, quoting Costigan, and added, to the Commandant, "No offense.”
“None taken,” The Commandant said, amused.
“Make love, not war?” Costigan winced. “Oh God, I’d almost forgotten that clip…”
***
The hospital was in a complex, with a tower; two towers, before one had come down, the victim of a fire since the Turning, and the abbreviated stump seemed like a folded finger, next to the one still pointed at the sky, making a one-fingered salute that Costigan knew well.
"It's a pinky promise," Marianne said, and Costigan, looking again, saw that yes, with it's leaning design and projecting tip, it did, almost, seem like a hand offering a pinky to hook with another, like Dee and Narice used to do. Narice was beyond worrying about, but he wondered what Dee and Tae were up to, her 'Jedi Master' and his 'Padwan'. Of course, it was hard to mock them, when they had weird, verifiable, powers...
"Woman, sometimes I wish I could see the world with your eyes, and not my own." He leaned 3939
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over and kissed her.
"I'd say that that was seven, for technique, and an eight, for style..."
Costigan gave the Trike the finger, and it rubbed it's irritating brakes, again. Marianne held her right pinky up, and Costigan hooked hers with his. "What's this for?"
"I promise, I won't ever give up on us."
"Me too," he said, a little gruffly.
***
They came in at a vast opening in the South face, the lobby of some company, perhaps; the hospital took up the lower floors, and it's landing zones were blocked by debris.
"These were the offices of a genetics firm, specializing in consulting on special, ah, obstacles. We think that they were working on the uber-virus, an anti-viral and a retro-viral, something to edit the factor back out."
"Did they get anywhere?" Marianne asked.
"That is the question..."
The runabout went away. They were in high demand, and needed elsewhere, five minutes ago. Costigan watched it disappear with grave misgivings, and then he turned to the task at hand.
As a three-man, err, person, team, they went in, and intially encountered no hostiles. This city was heavily uber; most of the demon-form Oddities had gone the way of all flesh, and then become steaming piles. No ubers was a good thing; the only good uber was... well, friendlies were starting to join up. Just another nine hundred, ninety-nine thousand and nine hundred and ninety-some, to go.
The wind blew through the open parts of the building, howling, and then he heard the wailing of the ubers. Costigan clucked his tongue, and spoke, first, for the benefit of the tactical computer, "Comm," and then, "Folks, be advised, we have company..."
***
Marianne and the Commandant were in one of the labs, and Marianne looked pleased. “Hey, didn’t you two hear me? Ubers, at least five or six of them, and one of them’s been eating really well!”
“Calm yourself, soldier. We have what we came here for, and it may well be illuminating.”
The shrieking of the wind and certain hungry monsters, died away, momentarily, and they heard, distinctly, in Ilshani, “I smell Trike!” 4040
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“Okay, let’s all panic, now…” The Commandant rubbed his brakes, and the humans chuckled.
Marianne spoke into the air, quietly, to a dispatcher in orbit, and then turned to them. “Ah, we’ve got to wait. That big fire, down on the southern continent, flushed some survivors who were hiding so well we and they didn’t know about each other, plus all the demons and ubers. They have all the runabouts tied up.”
“Ah, he’s the Commandant?”
“Which means we have the privilege of putting our lives on the line, with him; a Commandant of the Rangers is a Ranger, first.”
“Great!” Costigan kicked some debris, and it skittered out into the sky through a smashed window. “Well, I knew you weren’t just a REMF, but didja have to go and prove it to me?”
“Sorry,” the Commandant said, agreeably. “I think we should be moving. We need a defensible location to wait for the runabout, and the higher, the better, as far as I’m concerned, so as to make them work for it.”
“You dress out at, what, thirty-five kees? It hardly seems to be worth it…”
“Costigan!”
Costigan made a swinging motion, as if with a golf club. “Hole in one!”
“What is he doing, now?” the Commandant asked Marianne.
“I don’t always know,” Marianne admitted. “Part of the attraction is that I’m constantly trying to figure him out.”
“Ah,” the Trike said, as if he understood, and led off.
***
Up three levels, where, on the stairs, they ran into the leavings of a recent slaughter, of demon- form Oddities, it looked like. Costigan wondered if they had been working with the genetics lab, and cast about. “If I were setting up an ambush,” he muttered, pointing his blaster rifle at the door to the next level, and indicating the over looking landing above.
The uber burst through, a hundred thirty kilos of angry, hungry critter, that disappeared in a cloud of steam and sizzling meat, as Costigan hit the center of mass. It smelled a little like grel stew… Above them, screaming an attack, and then just screaming in terror as they fell, helpless to abort their leap, came three smaller ubers. Marianne and the Commandant fired and fired, and most of the mess fell away, down and down, to the foot of the stairwell, a long ways below.
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“Four more for the good guys,” Costigan drawled.
“No, Frank, that’s three less we get to save, and three less ubers we can enlist in the fight.”
“Oh. Yeah, I got caught up, in the moment…” They heard something, in the hall beyond the door, skittering as if it couldn’t run away fast enough.
“Hey, come back, we can help you!" Frank shrugged. “Well, we tried, right?”
***
They pushed on, up five floors, and then they were blocked by damage to the stairwell. It looked like somebody had fought a small war...
"Here we are, I guess. At least you won't have to wheel-walk up the steps, anymore, Right?" Costigan said to the Commandant.
"I am alright," the Trike said, but he carried his flesh and blood wheel gingerly off the floor, and rolled on two. The cyborg's third wheel had gone flying, along with part of his body, ripped out by an uber. It had grown back, and Costigan had been present when the wheel deployed and formed, like a dragonfly crawling out of it's shell and drying it's wings. In this case, the wheel, spokes and axel made up several intertwined rings of springy material, a little bit like chitin, or maybe even carbon-fiber; Costigan didn't know.
Apparently, this wasn't a big deal. just sore and painful. Ordinarily, the three wheels were oriented two on one side, and one on the other, so that a trike rolled a little like a motorcycle with a side car. The Commandant now seemed more like a man in a wheelchair.
The two humans were both looking at the Trike at that moment, and two hooked tentacles snaked out of the darkness. Marianne threw herself on top of the one nearest her, reaching for a combat knife, and the second hook snatched at her, as it pulled back. She rolled in the air, knife in her left, and the point of the tentacle came right back, past her, and into Costigan. She looked very nearly as surprised as he did, and then she slashed down with the knife.
Frank heard what sounded like a wild animal, and realized, distantly, that it was him. He found that he had a grenade in his hand, and sent it rolling into the darkness, but he had dropped his blaster rifle. The grenade blew, and the thing in the darkness cried pitieously from shrapnel. Costigan fell to his knees.
"Heh, what'd you say about sucking chest wounds?" Marianne said. She had dropped the knife, holding him by the shoulder and had one hand on a grenade, turning her head slightly to eye the darkness. She popped the grenade off her belt, armed it, and threw it, all in one fluid movement, and it sailed beyond the wreckage from the first grenade. When it went off, two more ubers cried out in fear and pain, and they could be heard, heading away.
"That they are telling you to slow down." Frank looked down at the sharp thing in his chest, and 4242
Ilshan and the Valley decided, all things considered, not to pull it out. It was serrrated, and sharp enough to cut through light body armor. A fire was starting to light things up, nicely, until the automatic fire-supression kicked in.
The Commandant rolled up to the two of them, and fired down the hallway. Whatever he was aiming at, he apparently missed, because he didn't seem happy; the raindow that flowed accross his skin, normally very subdued, was now a dark blue. Costigan knew that meant bad, because Marianne, as part of her time among the Trikes as a teenager, had told him.
"Easy," Marianne said, and helped him to lay on his side.
"Now what?" Costigan asked.
The Trike looked behind them, at the ruined and blocked stair. "We go up. We find a way, and we go."
***
Marianne went on ahead, to scout and to look for something they could use to get Costigan and the Trike past the blockage.
"This is a fine development, the body guarding the bodyguard," the Commandant told Costigan.
"Complain to my Uncle Sam," Frank said, and felt a trickle of blood down his back, where he lay on his side. He gently, but firmly, held the wound harder, and hoped that he wasn't accidently cutting deeper.
The Trike was watching the hallway and back down the stairwell, but he spared an eye for him. "So, you two work pretty good, together..."
"Yeah," said Costigan, trying to concentrate.
"Ever thought about becoming a Ranger?"
"Is that what you want me to do?"
"I was wondering if you wanted it. Are you going to raise the child with her?"
"You know? Of course, you know. You probably knew before- Did you? Did you know, before we came on the mission?"
"What do you think?"
"I think yes," Costigan answered, slowly. "Damnit!"
"One way of looking at it, you might say that she's violating our greatest law..."
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"To create and conserve life, and the potential for sapience... I suppose I could lawyer it, but that would be wrong. I never was much of a barracks-lawyer, anyways." "Do you- excuse me." The Commandant pulled and dropped another of their dwindling store of grenades, down the stairs. It bounced and rolled, down and down, one-one thousand, two-one- There was an explosion, followed by another, and Costigan thought he smelled alcohol.
"Do you think that she is denying the mission statement?"
"No offense, but I honestly don't care. I signed up to watch her back, caused some trouble, there at first, on Earthbound, about it all." He thought for a second. "Why did you Rangers let me?"
"We honored her, and her wishes, and because it was a good deal. Two fighters."
"You, you're more than that, right?"
"You're more than just a soldier, right?"
Costigan chewed on that, and after a bit, Marianne came back with some cable, and some carbon-fiber building members, and they went on, the Trike using his wheel to pull himself up, then Costigan, with Marianne dropping down. The thing still stuck in him, shifted, and he passed out for most of that.
***
"There is much to admire, of course," the Commandant said to Marianne. She was tracing a scar on his face with a fingertip. He was so pale...
"About him, you mean?"
"Yes. Was he your first choice, or were there others?"
"Are you my commanding officer, or my girlfriend?"
"Both," the Trike said.
"There was one other, who was interesting. A strange mythology, and a code he lived by, which, while admirable, was not for me."
"Why does he obsess, about you?"
"Aside from the sex?" Marianne smirked.
"That I would dearly love to discuss, in detail, but, alas, I do have an agenda..." The Commandant saw that she was not paying attention. "What has happened?"
"He's lost a lot of blood. I'm losing him," and there was an edge of panic, in her voice, and a 4444
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Ranger does not panic. "Going to see what we can do for him, right here."
"You do that, I'll keep the riffraff at bay."
***
Costigan's people were Scots-Irish, on his grandmother's side. His Grandfather had married into an extended clan, in the Midwest, and the next generation wove itself into a collection of soldiers, sailors, construction workers, farmers, nurses, schoolteachers, housewives and more. All with a rather Jacksonian outlook on politics and looking for their own Great Captain, in their own generation, like Lee or Grant, or Eisenhower.
In his father's, it had been Kennedy, and in his, Reagan. Lesser men and women, in public life, had followed, or at least so Costigan believed. He'd been a Green Beret, because his father had been one, and he had been a Green Beret, because the Duke had played one... but, after a while, Costigan had decided to get out.
Then along came 9/11, and his bards had sung a war prayer, and his brothers and sisters had needed him. He'd stayed in, and fought the good fight, but he'd been wounded, in spirit, before the aliens abducted him, and afterwards, he'd been, to quote one observer, 'rude, crude and obnoxious.' He'd gotten better, about the time he'd found a purpose, and love. Better, he'd found a reason to live that didn't automaticly involve endless death. Fighting, combat, death, all things he was good at, but never an end, in themselves. 'To liberate the oppressed,' that was what he was lived for.
The official motto of the Green Berets is De Oppresso Liber (Latin: To Liberate the Oppressed), a reference to one of their primary missions, training and advising foreign indigenous forces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Forces_ (United_States_Army)
***
“You will do…”
Costigan became aware of his surroundings as a bright cloud, within which he was drifting, and, curiously, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with this state of affairs. He was near a brighter part of the cloud, and he could hear voices. They were speaking low; Ilshani, not English, but it was not like the Ilshani he knew. It was more musical, and had a fluid quality to it.
“Who’s there?”
The brightest part of the cloud spoke, and it seemed to Frank, without actually seeing a face, he could somehow sense a grin. “That is an excellent question. I am He-Who-Waits; I have been known by many other names. Reshoo of the Shining Host; The Tester of The Hunters; and, most recently, Old Complications.”
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“I…I heard you were dead.”
The bright presence in the clouds rumbled in amusement, and seemed to become more distinct. The shape was as he expected; a hunter, eight limbs, like two tigers, together as either a centaur with four arms, or a centaur with six legs. Tiger striped, in black and orange, with many white patches. A great cat, having fun, toying with his dinner, only Frank was not afraid.
“I used to get that, a lot. But, it is true, and has been, for over twenty of your years.”
“I’m dead?”
“Yes. Not dead and gone, but, well, we shall see. My Little Hunter is working hard to get you back, so I’ll try to keep this short…”
“Why?”
The great alien cat shook it’s head, as if to shake off a fly. “Pardon? Why, what?”
“Why am I here? What do you want with me?”
“I have a message for Marianne, of course. I am proud of her, and,” he waved a paw in the air, at a bright knot of light, which seemed to be growing more and more distressed, “I think that her daughter will be an excellent Ranger, or whatever she chooses to be. But she’s scared, and I think it’s really time for you to go, don’t you?”
Costigan reached out and touched the bright knot, which wrapped itself around him, and the distress he sensed seemed to drain away. “This is our daughter? But she hasn’t been born, yet.”
“No, she has not. She is, that is all; she is.”
Frank would probably have felt too self-conscious, under any other circumstances. These were not, and he let it be. The bright knot of potential comforted him, as much as he comforted her; shared pain is diminished, and shared joy is increased.
***
The pain had been there, all along, but when he came back, from wherever he went, it hit him like a shock. Costigan grunted, and Marianne put a hand to his cheek. Frank opened his eyes, and saw her, in all her glory. Wild hair had escaped the short pony tail, and her face was smudged with soot, dirt, and blood from two different species and probably a half dozen individuals. Her eyes were red, from the irritants, and from crying; bright with the promise of more tears, held back by sheer force of will, and a smile to light up the Galaxy.
He really didn't hurt, that much, after all. He tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry. She gave him water, and it was the best thing he'd ever tasted.
"Hey, somebody die, or something?" 4646
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She buried her face in his shoulder, and it was wet. She swallowed the sobs and said, "Damn you. You did. You died on me, on us..."
"I got better- Hey, I'm hurt, don't hit the hurt guy, isn't that the way it works?"
"The hurt guy thinks he's funny."
"Marianne? I don't know how to say this, but... I went somewhere, and I met somebody, two somebodies, and they gave me a message..."
Marianne flipped up the eyebalss only diagnostic screen on the medic genie that was a subsystem of the Tactical Computer. No sign of head trauma, per se, but Costigan could have hit his head, hard enough, even in side a helmet, to have rattled his brains.
"Hey, I'm not- Look, it was real, okay? Marianne!"
"I beleive you," she said.
"Sure you do... Well, listen, anyway." Costigan sighed. He saw that the Commandant was still watching in all directions, and trying to follow their conversation. Great, the two people in the Galaxy he didn't want to convince that he was crazy, even if, just maybe, he was.
"Old Complications asked me to tell you..." It hadn't been in words, not all of it. "Not to keep chasing after him. He will be waiting for you, for a long time, so have a good life. 'Your mate and your daughter need you more than I do, Little Hunter.'"
"The other message was a lot less coherent, 'Mommy, love, live, live, need you, daddy, live-" Costigan swallowed. He looked helplessly to the Trike, who wasn't concentrating on them, anymore.
"Bloody-minded and persistent... If they would just put this much effort into communicating, we might get somewhere," he said, and fired carefully, making the remaining charge count. "We can discuss this, later. If you can move him, do so. I've got an idea; a bad one, but it's all we have, right now..."
***
We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance. –Benjamin Disreali
The bad idea involved a terrajoule capacitor- Costigan remembered the one, on Earthbound, that had cut loose, killing Moose, a few months ago. This was the power source for their blaster rifles- a one hundred and forty-four shot blast, all at once, turning the capacitor into an improvised grenade; hell, it made a decent claymore, or worse...
Marianne was standing, holding Costigan up, but she didn't turn to help him walk away. Costigan watched her face, as it went through several expressions. She tried for impassive, but 4747
Ilshan and the Valley couldn't pull it off, and then she looked as if she would cry, again. Then pride, love, peace.
"Please, go, and stop distracting me," the Trike said, looking Costigan in the eyes. He did not meet Marianne's. "It's been a long time since I tried this, and I don't want to blow her up. I owe her mother... everything."
"What about me? Don't I count?" Costigan said, smiling.
The Trike hissed, very like a house cat. "You lead a sort of charmed life. You have broad shoulders, and can carry a lot of trouble, but it is very hard on the people around you."
Costigan closed his mouth, and let Marianne help him walk away. She said to him, "You know, he didn't mean that; he's probably-"
"He's right. And a brave man, or alien, that's about to die for me, can say any damn thing he wants. 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' That's what you do."
"When I have to, which, as you can see, I haven't had to, yet." She looked back. "Don't count him out, either. Let's move it, soldier."
They went down the hall, into a room, and behind a desk. They were there just long enough for Costigan to get his breath. He was about to say something, when he heard excited howls, and, distinctly, "Say hello to my little friend!"
"He likes Scarf-"
The world seemed to be coming to an end. Debris smashed into their room, and the roaring went on and on, and then there was a long, rending sound. The outer wall fell away, so that they could now see the skyline, and the setting suns.
***
Costigan had a fear of heights, not that he ever let on, mostly, but now he crept slowly, but surely, back, away from the ragged edge of the floor, and he held Marianne’s arm in a death- grip, dragging her with him. When the floor tilted, he swore and threw himself and Marianne against the desk, which was still firmly attached. The tilt reached sixty degrees, and more, and there was a crash, as it hit the floor of the room below. The desk came loose, but not free, and he and Marianne lay there, stunned.
“I think that was me screaming…”
“You’re bleeding again,” she told him, as if that was his fault. “Gods and Ancestors, you are not going to bleed out while we wait!”
“Alright by me, but how-" Costigan shut up as she glared. They heard something moving around,
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and the Commandant, less his two cyborg wheels, swung into view, grasping cables and broken walls, and doing a fair job of getting around, tentacle-arm over tentacle-arm. Marianne went to help him.
"That's two casualties," the Trike said. "Ranger, I order you not to get wounded." The eyestalks blinked, the eyelids sliding over the eyeballs, and back. "Uh, I don't have any brakes left to rub..."
Costigan chuckled, stopped himself, and said, "I'm sorry for your loss," and then broke out into full belly laughs. He stopped and held his side, saying "Ow."
Marianne fussed over him, so that neither of them saw the uber rise up from below, quiet and with murderous intent; and still neither one saw the Commandant swing out on a cable, kicking and smashing it's good wheel. The Trike and the uber-form oddity fell into the sky.
Costigan sat up, carefully, and looked around. "Where's the Commandant?"
(Squid alert! Something like this happened to my buddy, Jim, in a military-style fantasy game. He was the sergeant, and Jim's proudest moment was when he got all of his troops focused; so focused, that nobody saw the sergeant attacked, and disappear in a puddle of acid from a black dragon (We were busy, fighting demons and stuff!). The other PCs, in character, just looked around, and just didn't know...)
***
The Commandant was still, while the uber thrashed. It did not accept this fate, but the Trike did. A Trike, it was said, was hatched looking for someplace to die. That wasn't true, but it had the shape of truth; ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of all Trikes, and a lesser portion of Oddity grubs and spawn, died before they reached the juvenile stage, became sentient and then sapient. Oddity grubs were sometimes even kept as pets. Immature Trikes feared adult Trikes as predators, and, in ages past, were prey. That probably explained the demon-godlings that the Trikes had for a pantheon.
One in ten thousand Trikes made it to juvenile stage and were adopted into a fraternity or sorority of older Trikes. On Trike Home, these 'clan' groupings were fiercely autonomous, and together, in their tens of thousands, formed the Free and Sovereign Clans. Since these brother- and sisterhoods were adoptive, only, most other species, especially humans, did not understand them.
Adult Trikes lived dangerously, daringly, and very few lived the hundreds of years that species in the Cee took for granted. Strangely enough, on an individual basis, self-selected Trikes made for some of the best Rangers. They were single-minded in their pursuit of each mission, and, contrary to the average, ordinary, Trike, chose to serve others before themselves. Also, they did not give up.
The Commandant had, now. You carried on, you took a mission, saw it through, and the next, and the next... It was time to accept that this one fell to Marianne. The Commandant fell out of 4949
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the sky, and he looked up at the stars above. The two suns were almost gone; one was already down, and the last sliver of the other was on the horizon.
There was an eye, in the sky, looking down on him, and getting closer. The Commandant found himself muttering, "... then cast your eyes on me..."
He took a hold of his remaining, shattered wheel with all three tentacle-hands, and pulled it apart. He told the uber, "Be still," and made it so, with three stabs, one, two, three. Leave it to a Trike to know exactly where an Oddities' three hearts were.
The uber made a poor airfoil, but he steered it close to a building, and threw himself at a banner,er, hanging since before the Turning. It predictably tore free, but it served, and on a makeshift parachute, the Commandant plummeted less quickly down to the ground. He still hit hard, but he would live.
***
Alex Freeman saw. He was hanging on a safety line at the cargo bay door of the saucer-shaped Earthbound, praying, one, that the line would hold, and two, that they would get there, in time.
"That magnificent bastard!"
"What?" said Dr. Korolev. Gregor Korolev and Andrea Price were also on safety lines, and holding his sister steady. Ahmed was driving, ululating over the intercom like a Moroccan bandit. In the fine tradition of Earthbound (anything done twice, being a tradition), while their captain was away, they were merely parking the ship somewhere else... The former truck driver brought them in next to the hole in the tower, with barely a kiss of starship to building.
Far below the vaguely eye-shaped disk, dozens of ubers had surrounded the Commandant. He'd climbed laboriously to the top of a pile of rubble, and was waving his last TJC. "I've got one left, and it's for you!"
The lead uber stood up straight, and spoke Ilshani with a refined, cultured accent. "Please, we don't want to kill you. If anything- We are a provisional militia, and we wish to surrender..."
"To me?" The Trike dearly desired brakes, to rub, and his skin flashed bright, in all the colors of the rainbow. "Oh, good. I accept."
***
It seemed, to Costigan, that the flank of a great sky-going beast slid past and brushed up to the gaping hole in the tower. It had a large round hole, with a cargo bay full of his friends. Alex Freeman jumped over to them, and Costigan looked up at his, fuzzily. "Hey Alex, what're you doin' here?"
"Saving you, brother, saving you."
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"I'm hallucinating, coz there's an uber, standing right next to you..." He saw that Marianne had a blaster rifle pointed at it, so maybe he wasn't seeing things.
"That's Vet. He came through uber-demon-hood, and out the other side. He's okay!"
Costigan nodded sagely, and passed out. Dr. K. took one enhanced, eyeballs-only, look at him and snapped, "Is critical. Get man in Medbay, now!"
"Da, Katya, we make it so," said her brother.
"Da, gospodinya commissar," muttered Alex, and Andrea rapped him on the back of his head.
"Less mock, more march, soldier!"
***
Costigan woked up in Medbay. The Commandant was on his right, and Frank was not surprised, somehow. The Commandant waved a tentacle-hand.
On the other side was some sort of life support machinery, with the melted look of highly cludged up Cee technology. It was decorated with baby allosaurs, bunny rabbits, butterflies and flowers. Frank stared at it for several seconds, and he knew. He felt a hand on his cheek, and looked up to see Marianne standing by his bed, Alex a little behind her. Costigan watched him turn and put a hand to the machine.
"I hear that you have met."
"Yeah, well, about that..." Costigan rolled his eyes.
"I'm here for you, brother. Always."
"Okay, would you dial it down, a notch? What're you, her fairy God-Uncle?" Frank smiled.
"You are dead, Costigan, D-E-A-D, dead," Alex said, without any heat. "Sometime, when you least expect it. And my face will be the last thing you ever see."
"Ooh, scary."
They grinned at each other, and Marianne said, "You boys are hopeless..."
"He started it!" They said, together, pointing. "Can you apes please be a little more quiet?"
Costigan started hooting and carrying on, "Ook, ook!" and Alex collapsed, helplessly, and banged his head once on the wall in comedic pain, breathless and with tears in his eyes. He
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pulled it together, and got out, "Can I please have a 'nanner?" Then he and Frank lost it, again.
"Hopeless..." Marianne went and sat with the Commandant. "Those two, together, might be ready, for a puppy. Not a baby."
"You will manage." The Commandant rolled through several rainbow patterns, answered on her face, the gist of which was, 'I am well, are you?' "I'm reassigning you. The mission is well into Stage Two, and we are going to be relying more and more on ubers."
"And where am I being reassigned to, exactly?"
"Training section. I want you, with your mother, to train me some more Rangers."
"Trying to protect me, and my mom?"
"Whatever. I need more Rangers, and I can spare two annoying human bodyguards- Help, I'm being attacked by an Amazon!"
The Commandant relaxed in her embrace, and added, quietly, "It's not over; this is merely the end of the beginning. My Rangers still exist, and I have not failed them, nor all of the Commandants, before me. It is well; the Universe is kind."
***
"So, what are you doing here?"
Alex turned away from the 'baby machine.'
"I'm on my way to liase with the Markov." He was very quiet, and the silence soaked up their good spirits. Costigan looked closely at his friends' face, and nodded.
"Hard to lose them?"
"Better," Alex said, gruffly, "Better than to watch them die. God, god gave them into my hands, to make them soldiers."
"You really do believe that?"
"You think that a man like me should blame God for being the way I am, who I am? I'll tell you what I believe; God doesn't make junk."
Costigan looked over at the machine that held his unborn daughter. "Amen."
They sat in a companionable silence for a minute, then Frank spoke.
"When you took over my guys, in addition yours, in the Space Force, the Markovs and Trikes
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and, god help us, Oddities," and they both smiled, remembering, "I told you that I didn't trust anyone else with them, but you. You know, better than most, that an Army isn't made up of identical parts, but individuals who act as one."
"My, 'It takes all kinds to win a War' speech," Alex said, laughing. "Or, was it a sermon?"
"Marianne says, 'The Universe is kind,' which, I suppose, is the same thing as 'God loves you.' Me, I'm just a dumb redneck, who's learned better, like this basic story plot that Moose tried explaining to me, once."
"Not just, Frank. Not just."
"God loves you, Alex, and so do I."
(Yeah, I stole it from A Knight's Tale , and the line is 'gay' as hell... and it stays, gorramit. It stays. I'm not a church-going man- I have regular a Saturday night game, and stay up late watching BLEACH and Moribito on Adult Swim (the rest of the week, I can't stomach it), so I can't make it. God knows where he or she can find me, and then we'll have words about the defects in Creation... But. But. I believe that humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, and I do not mock those who accept that we may not all understand the divine the same way, but still believe. To each, his own, and it takes all kinds to win a war, or go to the Stars.)
My Father’s Chapel by John Flynn
My father’s chapel has many churches has many temples, has many mosques My father’s chapel has many doorways Don’t try to tell me some doors are locked
My mother’s mansion has many houses has many dwellings, has many rooms My mother’s children are all invited Who gets to live where? we can’t presume
My brother’s fields have beautiful gardens With many vineyards and many vines My brother’s fields have many who labor All those who labor will drink his wine My father’s chapel has many benches Pews where the stranger may rest his feet My father’s chapel has many aisles I don’t need an usher, I’ll find my own seat
© 2005 Flying Stone Music
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Ilshan and the Valley
http://www.johnflynn.net/index4.html
***
"What do you want, Costigan?" Alex asked. He was looking at the baby machine, again.
"What do you mean?"
"What do you want from life, right this minute?"
"I'm a soldier; in fact, I'm a soldier who teaches. That's the best job I could ever want." Frank Costigan saw that Alex was laughing. "Yeah, my life doesn't belong to me, anymore. I suppose I'll become Mr. Mom, or something. Marianne... is a Ranger. They take extended leave, but not in the middle of emergencies. So, you see, I've got it covered, probably with a lot of help from TJ and Helen."
"Just like that?"
"It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that." Frank looked at Alex, sideways. "Why?"
"You and Marianne, and the Cee, it's all given me ideas that I'd written off a long time ago..."
"Thinking about a little Alex, or Alexandra, and- Oh."
"Yeah. Oh."
"I'm not... I'd be lying, if I said you don't make me uncomfortable."
"I'm grateful for that."
"Look-" Costigan started to say, but Alex interrupted him.
"No, I am grateful. Lying about being okay with me being gay, and your friend, that hurt."
Somebody once said, 'Do not speak, unless you can improve upon the silence.' Costigan shut up. Alex stood up, and they rapped knuckles, then Alex went away.
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