Battlespace Read online

  “Meanwhile, tensions continue to mount between the UFR and the EU–Mexican–Brazilian Accord over the question of Aztlan independence. President DeChancey announced that…”

  Cybernetic Hibernation Receiving

  Facility

  Star Marine Force Center

  Twentynine Palms, California

  0920 hours, PST

  Lance Corporal John Garroway, UFR/US Marine Corps, struggled upward toward light and consciousness. Tattered shreds of dreams clung to his awareness, already slipping away into emptiness. There were dreams of falling, of flame and battle and death in the night, and of an endless, empty gulf between the stars….

  He drew a breath and felt that terrifying no-air feeling you got when the wind was knocked out of you. He tried to inhale, harder, and a flash of white-hot pain stabbed at both sides of his chest.

  He was drowning.

  Garroway tried to breathe through the blockage and felt his body convulse in paroxysms of coughing and retching. A viscous jelly clogged his nose, mouth, and windpipe. A giant’s hand pressed down on his chest; another closed about his throat. Damn it, he couldn’t breathe….

  Then, with a final, explosive cough, the jelly was expelled from his lungs and he managed his first ragged, burning lungful of air. He managed a second breath, and a third. The pain and the strangling sensation faded.

  There was something wrong with his vision, he thought. He could see…a pale, faint green glow that nonetheless hurt the eyes, but there was nothing to see, save a flat, smooth, plastic-looking surface a few centimeters above his face. For a moment claustrophobia threatened, and his breathing became harsh, rapid, and painful once more.

  Something stung his arm at the angle of his elbow. A robotic injector arm pulled back, vanishing into a side compartment. “Lie still and breathe deeply,” a voice that was neither male nor female told him in his thoughts. “Do not try to leave your cell. A transition medical team will be with you momentarily.”

  Memories began surfacing, as other sensations besides pain and strangulation returned to his body. He’d been through this before. He was in a cybehibe tube and he was awakening once more after years of cybernetically induced hibernation. The voice in his head was coming from his own cerebral implant, which meant they were monitoring his revival.

  He was awake. He was okay….

  The gel that had moments before filled the narrow tube, providing, among other things, protection from several years’ worth of bed sores as well as a conduit for oxygen and cell-repair nano, was draining away now into the plastic padding beneath his back. Garroway concentrated on breathing, gulping down sweet air…and ignoring the stench that had collected inside the coffin-sized compartment for the past ten years or so. His empty and shrunken stomach threatened to rebel. He tried to focus on remembering.

  He could remember…yeah…he could remember.

  He remembered the shuttle flight up from the surface of Ishtar, and boarding a European Union transport—the Jules Verne. He remembered being told to remove all clothing and personal articles and log them with the clerk, of lying down on a metal slab barely softened by a thin plastic mattress, of a woman speaking to him in French as the first injection hit his bloodstream and turned the world fuzzy.

  Ishtar. He’d been at Ishtar. And now…Now? They must be at Earth.

  Earth!

  The thought brought a sudden snap of energy and he thumped his head painfully against the plastic surface of the hybe tube as he tried to sit up.

  Earth!…

  Or…possibly one of the LaGrange stations. The pull of gravity felt about right for Earth, but that could be due to the rotation of a large habitat. He might even still be on the EU ship.

  Gods and goddesses, no. He didn’t want to have to deal with them again. Let this be Earth!

  The end of his hybe cell just above his head hissed open, and his pallet slid out into light. Two Marines in utility fatigues peered down at him. “What’s your name, buddy?” one asked him.

  “Garroway,” he replied automatically. “John. Lance Corporal, serial number 19283-336-6959.”

  “That’s a roger,” the other said, reading from a comp-board. “He’s tracking.”

  “How ya feeling?”

  “A bit muzzy,” he admitted. He tried to concentrate on his own body. The sensations were…odd. Unfamiliar. “Hungry, I think.”

  “Not surprising after ten years with nothing but keepergel in your gut. You’ll be able to get some chow soon.”

  “Ten years? What…what year is it?”

  “Welcome to 2159, Marine.”

  He held up both hands, turning them, looking at them a bit wonderingly. They were still wet with dissolving gel. “2159?”

  “Don’t freak it, gramps,” the other Marine told him. “You’re all there. The nano even stopped your hair and nails from growing.”

  “Yeah. It just feels…odd. Where are we?”

  “The Marine Corps Cybernetic Hibernation Receiving Facility,” the Marine with the board said. “Twentynine Palms.”

  “Then I’m home.”

  The other Marine laughed. “Don’t make any quick judgments, timer. You’ll null your prog.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just lie there for a minute, guy. Don’t sweat the net. If you gotta puke, puke on the deck. The auts’ll take care of it. When you feel ready, sit up…but slow, understand? Don’t push your body too hard just yet. You need time to vam all the hibenano out of your system. When you feel like moving, make your way to the shower, get clean, and rec yourself some utilities.”

  Garroway was already sitting up, swinging his legs off the pallet. “I’ve done this before,” he said.

  “Suit yourself,” the Marine said. They were already moving away, beginning to cycle open the next cybehibe capsule in line, a few meters away. As the hatch cycled open and the pallet extruded itself from the bulkhead, Garroway could see the slowly moving form of Corporal Womicki half-smothered in green nanogel.

  “What’s your name, buddy?” one of the revival techs asked.

  “Wo-Womicki, Timothy. Lance Corporal, serial number 15521-119—”

  “He’s tracking.”

  “Welcome to 2159, Marine.”

  The routine continued.

  Elsewhere around the circular, fluorescent-lit compartment, other Marine revival techs were working with men and women emerging from cybehibe, dozens in this one room alone. Some, nude and pasty-looking, were already standing or making their way toward a door marked SHOWERS, but most remained on their pallets.

  “Hey, Gare!” Womicki’s voice was weak, but he was sitting up. “We made it, huh?”

  “I guess we did.”

  “Whatcha think the pool number is?”

  His stomach gave an unpleasant twist. “Dunno. Guess we’ll find out.”

  The deathwatch pool was a kind of lottery, with the Marines betting on how many would die in cybehibe passage.

  How many of their buddies had made it?

  And then his head started swimming and he vomited explosively onto the deck, emptying his stomach of yet more of the all-pervading foamy nanogel.

  A long moment later, his stomach steadied, and he began working on bringing some focus to his muddled thinking.

  Twentynine Palms. This was the place where he’d been loaded into cybe-hibe preparatory to being shuttled up to the IST Derna like a crate of supplies. That felt like a year ago or so…not twenty years.

  Well, his various briefings had warned him that he’d have some adjusting to do. Between the effects of relativity and the cybehibe sleep, he’d been just a bit out of touch with the rest of the universe.

  He thought-clicked his cerebral implant. “Link. Query. Local news update.”

  He expected a cascade of thought-clickable headers to scroll past his mind’s eye, but instead a red flash warned him that his Net access had been interdicted. “All shoreside communications have been restricted,” the mental voice told him. “You will be informed whe
n it is permissible to make calls off-base or receive information downloads.”

  A small flat automaton of some sort was busily cleaning up the mess he’d made on the deck.

  So far, he thought, this is a hell of a welcome home….

  Headquarters

  Star Marine Force Center

  Twentynine Palms, California

  1750 hours, PST

  “Why,” Colonel Thomas Jackson Ramsey said as he took a seat at the conference table, “all the extra security? My people have calls they want to make, and they’re justifiably curious about the Earth they’ve just come home to. But we appear to be under quarantine.”

  “Quarantine is a good word for it, Colonel,” General Richard Foss told him. “Operating policy now calls for a gradual insertion of returning personnel into ordinary life. Things have changed a lot in twenty years, you know.”

  “How much?”

  “The political situation is…delicate.”

  “It usually is. Damn it, what’s going on?”

  “The European Union has recognized the independent nation of Aztlan, along with Mexico, Brazil, and Quebec. All U.S. military bases are on full alert. The borders are closed. War may be eminent.”

  “Jesus.” Ramsey frowned. “An EU ship brought us home.”

  “The crisis flared up for the first time a year ago, about the time you were beginning deceleration, a half light-year out. Geneva recognized Aztlan independence, at least in principle, and was offering to broker talks. There was…concern, in some circles, that you people might be held hostage if war did break out.”

  Ramsey nodded. The Aztlan question had been smoldering for some years, even before the Derna had left for Ishtar, and it really was only a matter of time before there was a final showdown. The Aztlanistas wanted a homeland—to be carved out of the southwestern states of the Federal Republic of North America, land they claimed had been unjustly taken from Mexico in the wars of 1848 and 2042. Since that homeland would consist of some of the United Federal Republic’s choicest and most populous real estate—southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Baja, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua—Washington flatly refused to negotiate.

  Unfortunately, there were a number of players in the world arena, including China and the EU, who would like to see the UFR taken down a notch or three, and breaking away 8 of the Federal Republic’s 62 states would certainly accomplish that.

  “Things were smoothed out,” General Foss continued. “Our AIs talked to their AIs, a summit conference was held at Pacifica, and things quieted down a bit.

  “But two weeks ago, while you were still inbound out beyond the orbit of Saturn, Aztlanistas managed to smuggle a small AM bomb into the Federal Building in Sacramento. Twelve hundred dead—and the heart of the city leveled. At this point in time, Colonel, as you can imagine, there is considerable ill feeling toward people of Hispanic descent. Three days ago, anti-Latino rioting in New Chicago and in New York resulted in several hundred dead and over a thousand injured.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why my people are being held incommunicado, sir.”

  Foss didn’t reply for a long moment. His eyes seemed a bit unfocused and Ramsey waited. Possibly he was talking with someone else over his implant or downloading some key information.

  “Colonel,” Foss said at last, “there are people in the current administration who were suggesting MIEU-1 shouldn’t be allowed back to Earth.”

  “What?”

  Foss held up a hand. “You were working with the EU on Ishtar,” Foss said. “And you pulled that cute stunt that pulled the rug out from under PanTerra. There are some who question your loyalty, Colonel, and the loyalty of the Marines under your command.”

  Ramsey came to his feet. “Who?” he demanded.

  “Take it easy, Colonel.”

  “I will not take it easy. Sir. Who is accusing my men of disloyalty?”

  “Sit down, Colonel!” As Ramsey grudgingly took his seat, Foss folded his hands on the table and continued. “You know how rumors spread, Colonel. And how poisonous they can be. They take on a life of their own, sometimes, and do some horrific damage.”

  “That does not answer the question, General.” Ramsey was furious. “If I screwed up with the Ishtaran state, then court-martial me. But I was responsible, not my men!”

  “No one is talking about courts-martial, Colonel. Not yet, at any rate. You did overstep your authority, true, but there were…extenuating circumstances.”

  “Like the fact that my orders were coming from eight-point-three light-years away? And that something had to be done immediately?”

  “Well, yes. More to the point, however, your mission required you to support the PanTerran representatives and their interests.”

  “Which, it turned out, involved ‘liberating’ human slaves from the Ahannu, so they could be shipped to Earth as contract laborers. Slavery, in other words.”

  “Not slavery, Colonel…”

  “Oh? What are you calling it these days?”

  “Liberational relocation.”

  “Bullshit. Sir. The Sag-ura have been shaped by ten thousand years of Ahannu selective breeding and conditioning.” Sag-ura was the name for the descendents of humans removed from Earth thousands of years before and taken to other worlds of the Ahannu empire. “PanTerra was planning on shipping them in cybehibe tubes back to Earth to be trained and sold as ‘domestics.’ With no understanding of Earth–human culture, what chance would they have had for real freedom?”

  “You made certain political decisions, Colonel.” He gave a grim, hard smile. “Do you realize that they’re calling it ‘Ramsey’s Peace’ now?”

  “Yes, sir. We helped facilitate the creation of an independent Sag-uran state, which should be able to look out for the interests of humans living on Ishtar.”

  “And it was not within the purview of the Marines to dabble in local politics.”

  “No, sir. Except that the Ahannu had surrendered. Earth was eight-and-a-half light-years away, and the EU–Brazilian military expedition was due to show up in another five months. Do you think they would have tried to guarantee the safety of the Sag-ura?”

  “Probably not. Especially since they have PanTerran connections as well.” Foss cleared his throat. “The point, Colonel, is that you did overstep yourself by making the decisions you did. But that’s not why I called you in here.”

  Ramsey worked to control his anger. “Yes, sir.”

  “There is widespread suspicion that MIEU-1 was working with the EU on Ishtar.”

  “Reasonable enough. We were. Under orders.”

  “Indeed. And by brokering that agreement with the natives and creating that Sag-uran state, whatever it’s called…”

  “Dumu-gir Kalam, sir.”

  “Whatever. You did steal a march on the EU. They couldn’t very well abrogate treaties you’d written and signed, not without an incident and some very bad press back home.”

  “So the Accord is holding up?”

  “Has for the ten years since you left, Colonel, yes. As for the future? Who knows? The EU have established a diplomatic mission on Ishtar, now.”

  “So they’re playing by the rules, at least.”

  “For now. But my concern is what’s happening on this planet. On Earth. Specifically, we have people—both in the government and ordinary Joes and Janes on the streets—who think you were somehow collaborating with the EU on Ishtar. And they know that the EU brought you back to Earth on one of their transports.”

  “Well, it was that or have us stay there with them.”

  “It was decided to have MIEU-1 return to Earth, Colonel. Protecting UFR interests on Ishtar is the Army’s job now.” An Army occupational force consisting of elements of the First Extrasolar Special Operations Group had accompanied the EU and Brazilian joint expedition. “However, that has caused some serious problems for us here.”

  “My men are loyal, General,” Ramsey said through clenched teeth. “You can’t lock them a
way without a fair hearing.”

  Foss sighed. “Colonel, it’s not just the loyalty question. You should know that. The Ahannu are the focus of the biggest religious brouhaha since Adam and Eve got their eviction notice in Eden. Some people think they are gods—or the descendents of gods—and that our proper place is at their feet, worshipping them.”

  “Crackpots.”

  “Some think they’re demons and think it’s wrong to have any political dealings with them at all. Some think they’re the underdogs, poor, misunderstood little primitives, and the big, bad Marines are out to commit high-tech genocide. Some think they’re your stereotypical bug-eyed monsters lusting after human females, slave masters who must be punished. The Papessa is saying the Ahannu ought to be stopped from keeping slaves. The Anti-Pope is saying we have to treat the Ahannu as friends and equals and to respect their traditions. The list goes on and on.

  “The point is, Colonel, you and your people have come back to Earth at a rather sensitive time. You can’t help but be caught up in the politics—and the religious controversy. You’ve just stepped off the boat, Colonel, and smack into quicksand.”

  “If you’re looking for a scapegoat, General, you’re free to take a shot at me. I’ll fight it, but you can try. But it is a monstrous injustice to blame the men under my command for—”

  “No one is blaming them, Colonel. Or you. But I needed to make sure you understood the…ah…delicate nature of your position here.”

  “You’ve got my attention, sir. That’s for damned sure.”

  “We have a new situation, one that calls for MIEU-1’s special, um, talents.”

  “Another deployment, General?”

  He nodded. “Another deployment.”

  “To where?”

  “To Sirius. Eight-point-six light-years out. The brightest star in Earth’s night sky.”

  That pricked Ramsey’s interest. “The Wings of Isis, sir? She found something?”

  “Link in, Colonel, and I’ll fill you in with what we know.”

  Ramsey closed his eyes and felt the familiar inner shiver as data began to flow, downloading through his cereblink.

  Visual: A wedding band adrift in space. Two stars, arc-brilliant and dazzling to look at, hung in the distance, suspended against wispy clouds of hazy light.