Old Man's War Part 17

"How many survivors?" I asked.

"You were the only one off the Modesto, Modesto," Jesse said.

"Other shuttles got away," I said.

"They were shot down," Jesse said. "The Rraey shot down everything bigger than a bread box. The only reason our shuttle survived was that our engines were already dead. They probably didn't want to waste the missile."

"How many survivors, total?" I said. "It can't just be me and your shuttle."

Jesse and Harry stood mute.

"No f.u.c.king way, way," I said.

"It was an ambush, John," Harry said. "Every s.h.i.+p that skipped in was. .h.i.t almost as soon as it arrived in Coral s.p.a.ce. We don't know how they did it, but they did it, and they followed through by mopping up every shuttle they could find. That's why the Sparrowhawk Sparrowhawk risked us all to find you-because besides us, you're the risked us all to find you-because besides us, you're the only only survivor. Your shuttle is the only one that made it to the planet. They found you by following the shuttle beacon. Your pilot flipped it on before you crashed." survivor. Your shuttle is the only one that made it to the planet. They found you by following the shuttle beacon. Your pilot flipped it on before you crashed."

I remembered Fiona. And Alan. "How many were lost?" I asked.

"Sixty-two battalion-strength cruisers with full crews," Jesse said. "Ninety-five thousand people. More or less."

"I feel sick," I said.

"This was what you'd call a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k," Harry said. "There's no doubt about that at all. So that's why we're still here. There's nowhere else for us to go."

"Well, that and they keep interrogating us," Jesse said. "As if we knew anything. We were already in our shuttle when we were hit."

"They've been dying for you to recover enough to talk to," Harry said to me. "You'll be getting a visit from the CDF investigators very soon, I suspect."

"What are they like?" I asked.

"Humorless," Harry said.

"You'll forgive us if we're not in the mood for jokes, Corporal Perry," Lieutenant Colonel Newman said. "When you lose sixty s.h.i.+ps and one hundred thousand men, it pretty much leaves you in a serious state of mind."

All I had said was "broken up," when Newman asked how I was doing. I thought a slightly wry recognition of my physical condition was not entirely out of place. I guess I was wrong.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Although I wasn't really joking. As you may know, I left a rather significant portion of my body on Coral."

"How did you get to be on Coral, anyway?" asked Major Javna, who was my other interviewer.

"I seem to remember taking the shuttle," I said, "although the last part I part I did on my own." did on my own."

Javna glanced over to Newman, as if to say, Again with the jokes Again with the jokes. "Corporal, in your report on the incident, you mention you gave your shuttle pilot permission to blow the Modesto Modesto shuttle bay doors." shuttle bay doors."

"That's right," I said. I had filed the report the night before, shortly after my visit from Harry and Jesse.

"On whose authority did you give that command?"

"On my own," I said. "The Modesto Modesto was getting hammered with missiles. I figured that a little individual initiative at that point in time would not be such a bad thing." was getting hammered with missiles. I figured that a little individual initiative at that point in time would not be such a bad thing."

"Are you aware how many shuttles were launched across the entire fleet at Coral?"

"No," I said. "Although it seems to have been very few."

"Less than a hundred, including the seven from the Modesto, Modesto," Newman said.

"And do you know how many made it to the Coral surface?" Javna said.

"My understanding is that only mine made it that far," I said.

"That's right," Javna said.

"So?" I said.

"So," Newman said, "that seems to have been pretty lucky for you that you ordered the doors blown just in time to get your shuttle out just in time to make it to the surface alive."

I stared blankly at Newman. "Do you suspect suspect me of something, sir?" I said. me of something, sir?" I said.

"You have to admit it's an interesting string of coincidences," Javna said.

"The h.e.l.l I do," I said. "I gave the order after after the the Modesto Modesto was. .h.i.t. My pilot had the training and the presence of mind to get us to Coral and close enough to the ground that I was able to survive. And if you recall, I only barely did so-most of my body was sc.r.a.ped over an area the size of Rhode Island. The only was. .h.i.t. My pilot had the training and the presence of mind to get us to Coral and close enough to the ground that I was able to survive. And if you recall, I only barely did so-most of my body was sc.r.a.ped over an area the size of Rhode Island. The only lucky lucky thing was that I was found before I died. Everything else was skill or intelligence, either mine or my pilot's. Excuse me if we were trained well, thing was that I was found before I died. Everything else was skill or intelligence, either mine or my pilot's. Excuse me if we were trained well, sir sir."

Javna and Newman glanced at each other. "We're only following every line of inquiry," Newman said mildly.

"Christ," I said. "Think about it. If I really planned to betray the CDF and survive it, chances are I'd try to do it in a manner that didn't involve removing my own f.u.c.king jaw." I figured that in my condition, I just might be able to snarl at a superior officer and get away with it.

I was right. "Let's move on," Newman said.

"By all means, let's," I said.

"You mentioned you saw a Rraey battle cruiser firing on a CDF cruiser as it skipped into Coral s.p.a.ce."

"That's correct," I said.

"Interesting you managed to see that," Javna said.

I sighed. "Are you going to do this all through the interview?" I said. "Things will move along a lot quicker if you're not always trying to get me to admit I'm a spy."

"Corporal, the missile attack," Newman said. "Do you remember whether the missiles were launched before or after the CDF s.h.i.+p skipped into Coral s.p.a.ce?"

"My guess is that they were launched just before," I said. "At least it seemed that way to me. They knew when and where that s.h.i.+p was going to pop out."

"How do you think that's possible?" Javna asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I didn't even know how skip drives worked until a day before the attack. Knowing what I know, it doesn't seem like there should be any way to know a s.h.i.+p is coming."

"What do you mean, 'knowing what you know'?" Newman said.

"Alan, another squad leader"-I didn't want to say he was a friend, because I suspected they'd think that was suspicious-"said that skip drives work by transferring a s.h.i.+p into another universe just like the one it left, and that both its appearance and disappearance are phenomenally unlikely. If that's the case, it doesn't seem like you should be able to know when and where a s.h.i.+p will appear. It just does."

"What do you think happened here, then?" asked Javna.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"As you say, there shouldn't be any way to know that a s.h.i.+p is skipping," Javna said. "The only way we can figure this ambush occurred is if someone tipped off the Rraey."

"Back to this," I said. "Look, even if we supposed the existence of a traitor, how did he do it? Even if he somehow managed to get word to the Rraey that a fleet was coming, there's no possible way he could have known where every s.h.i.+p was going to appear in Coral s.p.a.ce-the Rraey were waiting for us, remember. They hit us while we were skipping into Coral s.p.a.ce."

"So, again," Javna said. "What do you think happened here?"

I shrugged. "Maybe skipping isn't as unlikely as we thought it was," I said.

"Don't get too worked up over the interrogations," Harry said, handing me a cup of fruit juice he'd gotten for me at the medical center's commissary. "They gave us the same 'it's suspicious you survived' bit."

"How did you react?" I asked.

"h.e.l.l," Harry said. "I agreed with them. It's d.a.m.n d.a.m.n suspicious. Funny thing is, I don't think they liked that response any better. But ultimately, you can't blame them. The colonies have just gotten the rug pulled out from under us. If we don't figure out what happened at Coral, we're in trouble." suspicious. Funny thing is, I don't think they liked that response any better. But ultimately, you can't blame them. The colonies have just gotten the rug pulled out from under us. If we don't figure out what happened at Coral, we're in trouble."

"Well, and there's an interesting point," I said. "What do you think happened?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "Maybe skipping isn't as unlikely as we thought." He sipped his own juice.

"Funny, that's what I said."

"Yeah, but I mean mean it," Harry said. "I don't have the theoretical physics background of Alan, G.o.d rest his soul, but the entire theoretical model on which we understand skipping has to be wrong somehow. Obviously, the Rraey have some way to predict, with a high degree of accuracy, where our s.h.i.+ps are going to skip. How do they do that?" it," Harry said. "I don't have the theoretical physics background of Alan, G.o.d rest his soul, but the entire theoretical model on which we understand skipping has to be wrong somehow. Obviously, the Rraey have some way to predict, with a high degree of accuracy, where our s.h.i.+ps are going to skip. How do they do that?"

"I don't think you're supposed to be able to," I said.

"That's exactly right. But they do anyway. So, quite obviously, our model of how skipping works is wrong. Theory gets thrown out the window when observation proves it isn't so. The question now is what is really really going on." going on."

"Any thoughts on it?" I said.

"A couple, although it's not really my field," Harry said. "I don't really have the math for it."

I laughed. "You know, Alan said something very much like that to me, not too long ago."

Harry smiled, and raised his cup. "To Alan," he said.

"To Alan," I said. "And all our absent friends."

"Amen," Harry said, and we drank.

"Harry, you said you were there when they brought me on board the Sparrowhawk, Sparrowhawk," I said.

"I was," he said. "You were a mess. No offense."

"None taken," I said. "Do you remember anything about the squad that brought me in?"

"A little," Harry said. "But not too much. They kept us isolated away from the rest of the s.h.i.+p for most of the trip. I saw you in the sick bay when they brought you in. They were examining us."

"Was there a woman in my rescue party?"

"Yes," Harry said. "Tall. Brown hair. That's all I remember right off the top of my head. To be honest, I was paying more attention to you than who was bringing you in. I knew you. I didn't know them. Why?"

"Harry, one of the people who rescued me was my wife. I'd swear on it."

"I thought your wife is dead," Harry said.

"My wife is is dead," I said. "But this was her. It wasn't Kathy as she was back when we were married. She was a CDF soldier, green skin and all." dead," I said. "But this was her. It wasn't Kathy as she was back when we were married. She was a CDF soldier, green skin and all."

Harry looked doubtful. "You were probably hallucinating, John."

"Yeah, but if I was hallucinating, why would I hallucinate Kathy as a CDF soldier? Wouldn't I just remember her as she was?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "Hallucinations, by definition, aren't real. It's not as if they follow rules. There's no reason you couldn't have hallucinated your dead wife as CDF."

"Harry, I know I sound a little nuts, but I saw my wife, I saw my wife," I said. "I may have been chopped up, but my brain was working fine. I know what I saw."

Harry sat there for a moment. "My squad had a few days on the Sparrowhawk Sparrowhawk to stew, you know," he said. "We were crammed into a rec room with nowhere to go and nothing to do-they wouldn't even allow us access to the s.h.i.+p's entertainment servers. We had to be escorted to the head. So we talked about the crew of the s.h.i.+p, and about the Special Forces soldiers. And here's an interesting thing: None of us knew anyone who had ever entered the Special Forces from the general ranks. By itself, it doesn't mean anything. Most of us are still in our first couple of years of service. But it's interesting." to stew, you know," he said. "We were crammed into a rec room with nowhere to go and nothing to do-they wouldn't even allow us access to the s.h.i.+p's entertainment servers. We had to be escorted to the head. So we talked about the crew of the s.h.i.+p, and about the Special Forces soldiers. And here's an interesting thing: None of us knew anyone who had ever entered the Special Forces from the general ranks. By itself, it doesn't mean anything. Most of us are still in our first couple of years of service. But it's interesting."

"Maybe you have to be in the service a long time," I said.

"Maybe," Harry said. "But maybe it's something else. They call them 'Ghost Brigades,' after all." He took another sip of his juice and then set it down on my bedside table. "I think I'm going to go do some digging. If I don't come back, avenge my death."

"I'll do as best as I can under the circ.u.mstances," I said.

"Do that," Harry said, grinning. "And see what you can find out, too. You have at least another couple of interrogation sessions coming up. Try a little interrogating of your own."

"What about the Sparrowhawk Sparrowhawk?" Major Javna said at our next interview session.

"I'd like to send a message to it," I said. "I want to thank them for saving my life."

"It's not necessary," Lieutenant Colonel Newman said.

"I know, but it's the polite thing to do," I said. "When someone keeps you from being eaten toe by toe by woodland animals, the least you can do is send a little note. In fact, I'd like to send the note directly to the guys who found me. How do I do that?"

"You can't," Javna said.

"Why not?" I asked, innocently.

"The Sparrowhawk Sparrowhawk is a Special Forces s.h.i.+p," Newman said. "They run silent. Communication between Special Forces s.h.i.+ps and the rest of the fleet is limited." is a Special Forces s.h.i.+p," Newman said. "They run silent. Communication between Special Forces s.h.i.+ps and the rest of the fleet is limited."

"Well, that doesn't seem very fair," I said. "I've been in the service for over a year, and I never had a problem getting mail to my friends on other s.h.i.+ps. You would think even Special Forces soldiers would want to hear from their friends in the outside universe."

Newman and Javna glanced at each other. "We're getting off track," Newman said.

"All I want to do is send a note," I said.

"We'll look into it," Javna said, in a tone that said, No we won't No we won't.