Freedom's Fire Read online

  Nevertheless, I don’t have time to listen. I assume they’re bitching about me. That’s expected, but they’ve got more important things to do. Me too. I tell Brice, “His comm must be malfunctioning. How many casualties?”

  “One dead before we took off. Three more missing. Whether they just didn’t board, or were injured down on the surface, I don’t know. Sergeant Drake was the only enlisted man in the platoon besides me with combat experience.”

  I gulp. That’s going to hurt.

  “A round came through one of the doors and ricocheted around inside the platoon compartment. Not counting Drake, four soldiers are dead, and two are injured. We have suit patches over the wounds, although we need to get them into the sickbay so the corpsman can peel off the suits and treat them.”

  Twenty-seven percent casualties and we haven’t been on the ship ten minutes. I tell Brice, “We lost pressure in the back half of the ship when they hit us.”

  “When will we be able to re-pressurize?”

  I look at the fist-sized holes above and below me in the airlock. I know there’s at least one hole in the bridge, and I don’t know where else. “Can’t say. It doesn’t look good. The airlock is damaged. Get your corpsman to haul the wounded into the infirmary. Maybe we can seal that room and pressurize it, however, they’ll all be locked inside, with no way to move them out until we land or fix the holes in the hull.”

  “That takes our corpsman out of the fight.” It’s a crap choice, but Brice is decisive. “I say we do it. At least that way the wounded we have now will have a chance. The rest of us will just have to not get hurt.”

  “Agreed.” Time for more drastic measures. “Sergeant, have one of your people recycle me a kit off one of the dead soldiers.” Commissars like me are only armed with a pistol. Infantry have a pistol as well, a rifle-sized railgun, grenades, and ammunition for it all. “I’m coming with the platoon when we raid the Trog ship.”

  “Sir?” he asks. “You’re not trained for—”

  “Let’s be honest,” I tell him. “Except for you, none of us have seen anything but a simulator. I’m not sending the troops out short on noncoms with a lieutenant who won’t communicate, and a company captain whose suit seems to have boarded without him in it. We go in together.”

  “Yes, sir,” answers Brice.

  I think I’ve scored some points with him. “Get my kit together. I need to move up to the bridge and resolve a situation. I’ll be right back down. Make sure the platoon is ready to roll.”

  Chapter 21

  Finally, I’m through the airlock’s interior door and into the central hallway that runs down the axis of the ship. Phil has restored radial grav at point-two-g, so I close the door and shove off to float toward the bridge.

  In here, where the ship was designed to hold air, the metal surfaces are painted, though the paint is already flaking, evidence of how hastily the vessel was thrown together. If the Trogs don’t kill us, we’ll be lucky to live through the day in our iron coffin.

  The rear half of the ship is much wider than the front, so it has enough interior space on each side of the hall for the infirmary, a few storerooms, and the captain’s quarters. The door at the far end of the corridor leads to the bridge. As I reach it, a Korean-accented voice blares over my comm. “Captain dead. I charge ship.” It’s the first officer. I’ve read his name off the crew roster, except I know I’ll screw up the pronunciation, so I don’t use it to address him. “We need to talk.”

  “You charge grunts,” he tells me. “I charge ship. Go. Ready boots.”

  Boots?

  I bite my lip to funnel my anger. It’s insulting the first officer’s English is so bad. It tells me exactly how little respect the North Koreans and their Gray masters have for the rest of us. That’s nothing new. I try the handle on the bridge door. It doesn’t budge. I try to unlock the mechanism through my link to the ship. Rejected. I don’t bother to soften the edge on my annoyance when I say, “Unlock the door, lieutenant.”

  “You charge grunts,” he shoots back.

  “You get us in communication with our chain of command!” I yell in chopped, precise words. “That’s your job. Do it now!”

  “You charge grunts. Go.”

  Over the bridge comm, I say “Phil, unlock the bridge door.” I don’t want him to have to execute the first prosecutable act in our mutiny, but there’s no choice.

  The Korean officer hears my instructions to Phil and blows a tirade of half-intelligible orders over the command comm.

  I try the handle on the bridge door again. It’s free.

  I slip through and lightly bounce up the six steps to reach the bridge floor level.

  The Korean officer is yelling and facing Phil where he sits at a console for monitoring and controlling ship systems. He doesn’t realize Phil has already done the thing he’s trying to prevent. The officer doesn’t know I’m on the bridge.

  In the light-g, I shove off the floor to float toward them, pulling my pistol from its magnetic belt mount as I go.

  If I can maneuver close enough and get the angle right, I can send a round through the circuitry embedded in a node on the backside of his helmet. It’ll kill the helmet’s communication systems, and consequently ruin the suit’s life support system control computer. It won’t be a death sentence. It’ll just mean the first officer will need a replacement helmet off one of the dead soldiers. He’ll have to suffer a few moments of vacuum while he makes the switch. Then again, the list of unpleasant inconveniences anyone will suffer to avoid dying is nearly endless.

  Once the first officer is wearing a soldier’s helmet encoded to my command authority under the company hierarchy, I’ll have control over his suit and he’ll be a manageable problem. What I’ll do with him then, I don’t know—probably freeze his suit and store him in the captain’s quarters until I come up with a permanent solution.

  Unfortunately, the first officer senses something just as I come within arm’s reach.

  He spins as fast as he can in light-g with only a grip on a wall handle.

  His eyes narrow and he starts yelling at me, thinking he’s putting me in my place, telling me what a stupid grunt I am. He’s riled because I’m a political officer and my existence is an affront to the natural authority of Koreans over the lower forms of humanity, the rest of the humans on earth.

  In truth, that’s all in my head. It’s what I imagine his rapid string of babble means, at least until I see in his eyes he understands I’m not here for a tongue-lashing. My pistol is in hand.

  I reach out to throw an arm around his helmet so I can leverage him into place.

  He’s quick, and he manages to clasp both his small hands on my weapon, trying with all his effort to wrench it away, to point it at me.

  It happens fast, two men grappling in light-g, with little leverage. I’m faster than him, not physically, but mentally. Or maybe I’m just better trained from all those hours in the simulator and zero-g room back on earth. I activate my suit’s gravity and use my momentum to slam him into a bulkhead, thinking I’ll knock the wind out of him and earn a few seconds to do what I need to do.

  In the collision, my gun fires a burst of four shots.

  The slugs rip into his chest and tear a path up his throat.

  High-velocity metal bits ricochet inside his helmet and jerk it back and forth on his shoulders. Through his faceplate, I see his head disintegrate like a frog in a blender.

  It’s over as soon as it starts.

  His grip loosens, and his body spasms.

  Then he’s still.

  I let go of the corpse, and without taking my eyes off the unintended consequence of my mutinous act, I comm the remains of the bridge crew. “Penny, Phil, you good?”

  “Yes,” answers Penny, unfazed.

  Phil’s response is not intelligible.

  “Revolution?” I ask, without looking at them, as I convince myself what I just did wasn’t murder.

  “Revolution,” they each answer in
varying degrees of enthusiasm.

  It’s the first time any of us have said the word louder than a whisper.

  Oh, Christ!

  I spin around, suddenly realizing I may have just made a fatal mistake.

  The bridge isn’t that large, and I’m confused.

  I see the ship captain’s body collaged in a mess of gore on one wall, held tenuously there by the micro-g. I don’t see Captain Milliken. “Where is he?”

  Guessing who I’m talking about, Phil asks, “You didn’t see him? Milliken went forward before you came in.”

  I deduce the only possibility outside of Milliken being a magician able to materialize anywhere he likes, he must be in one of the rooms off the main corridor, having gone inside before I came out of the airlock at the other end of the hall.

  Why would he be in there?

  “How’d you know he didn’t have a kill switch wired?” Penny asks me, motioning her head at the dead first officer.

  I didn’t. I guessed not. I hoped not. Being the company commissar, I was the only one onboard who was supposed to be able to set a kill switch. However, with the MSS so infiltrated into everything, such a duplicitous proxy of the Grays’ authority over earth, anything is possible.

  I decide to comfort my crew with something that sounds certain. “Nobody’s life support turned off when the captain was hit.” I let them finish the logical deduction that if the captain had no kill switch, then his lieutenant, of course, didn’t either.

  Pragmatic, Penny asks, “What next, Captain?”

  “Like I said, we’re attacking.” I hand my pistol to Phil, and take the first officer’s weapon off his belt and pass it to Penny. I like the idea we three rebels will have weapons, though for the moment, I have nothing.

  Phil, looking emphatically at the dead first officer, says, “I can handle ship systems and gravity just fine. I can’t do ship-to-ship comm, and my Korean is terrible.”

  That’s one of the flaws in our plan. Everybody on earth who’s not Korean hates them so much, few sully their tongues with the language. “I’ll see if Brice has a Korean speaker he can send up to help.”

  “Is that wise?” Phil nods a few times at the dead first officer, evidence of the crime I just committed.

  I shrug like it doesn’t bother me. “The captain and first officer were killed when the railgun slugs hit the ship.” It’s the easiest lie to tell. “Just be careful what you say around the soldier until we know whether he’s with us or not.” I comm-link to Sergeant Brice. “The first officer and captain are dead.”

  “Both the Koreans?” he asks, his voice ripe with hidden meaning. He suspects I fragged them. How could he not?

  Or is it paranoia—or guilt—putting on a new mask?

  “Do you have anyone who can work the comm panel who speaks Korean?” I ask.

  “Give me ten seconds.”

  I click back to the bridge comm. “Penny, you have the ship. I need the soldiers to see me among them.”

  “You should stay on the bridge,” Penny argues. “Captain the ship. That’s what we planned.”

  “Milliken is an idiot,” I tell her. “Lieutenant Holt isn’t any better. I need to be with the troops when they go in.” I hadn’t expected anything to happen so fast, and not in this way. I’d figured I’d have a chance to bring the platoon, and then the company, to our side, maybe with a speech that ended in cheers. Silver-screen fantasies always look good when they roll through your imagination.

  Now that I’ve seen the way the soldiers look at me, I know none of them like me, and many of them hate me. If I don’t wade into the battle and shed blood with them, I won’t gain their respect.

  “Phil,” I say, “Penny’s in charge when I’m not on the bridge.”

  I see in his face he’s not happy about it, but he nods.

  Brice pings me. “I’ve found a competent Korean speaker. Almost no American accent.”

  “Send him to the bridge,” I tell the sergeant. “I’ll be forward momentarily. Is my kit ready?”

  “Ready.”

  I cut back to the bridge comm. “Penny, we’re going on the attack. I’d prefer not to go in alone. As soon as that soldier makes it up here, situate him with the ship’s comm panel and tell him to find out if there’s anyone out there who can attack with us.”

  With my business on the bridge done much more permanently than I’d planned, I head forward.

  Chapter 22

  A female soldier—a short woman with a serious face and kind eyes—is in the airlock when I step through the inner door. In her arms, she’s holding an extra set of weapons. Another soldier, Jablonsky, shoves by me on his way to the bridge. He doesn’t say, “sir.” He doesn’t apologize for bumping into me as he passes.

  Jablonsky doesn’t have the balls to say what’s on his mind, but still wants me to notice his disrespect. He thinks I’m just a commissar, a stooge bureaucrat for the MSS, not a real grunt. It rubs me the wrong way because I know he’s not a grunt either. He’s not even competent with his equipment.

  Back at the depot when we were trying to load into the ship, after he activated his suit’s g, he was drifting in the air ten feet off the ground, struggling against the buffeting from the explosions when I remotely took control of his suit and moved him inside.

  It’s my bet Jablonsky’s never spent any time in a zero-g room.

  I stop.

  I realize I’m indulging vindictive little emotions affordable to a line worker at the grav factory, but not to a major leading his troops into war. It’s my job to win the men’s respect, not simply to expect it. Getting used to my new job won’t be as easy as it seemed back when I was sitting in dark rooms, plotting my treason.

  “Sir, I’m Sergeant Lenox, sir.” The soldier with my inherited kit is still in the airlock with me.

  “Good to meet you, Lenox.” I recall she was one of the first to board back at the shipyard. She was competent with her grav controls.

  Lenox unloads the equipment by simply letting it go and allowing it to drift toward the walls.

  Blood stains are on the gun, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s the blood of one of my soldiers or if the stains were left by a previous owner.

  Lieutenant Holt opens the outer airlock door in front of me and steps inside.

  The airlock isn’t small, but I’m not comfortable with the unexpected proximity. Over a private comm, I ask, “What do you need, Holt?”

  On the platoon channel for all ears to hear, he says, “We need to talk.”

  “We can talk over the private channel.” I say it in a scolding tone, though I silently admonish myself for doing so. I shouldn’t disrespect my officers in front of their subordinates.

  Damn, being the officer in charge is going to be harder than I thought.

  Holt doesn’t respond. He shuffles his feet and glances around. His mouth moves, so I see he’s talking again, but not to me.

  Over the private comm, I try to get his attention. “Lieutenant?”

  He ignores me.

  He’s going to be a problem. Yeah, I’m a deductive genius sometimes.

  I tap my d-pad to see who he’s conversing with. No surprise. It’s Captain Useless.

  Worrisome.

  But enough of this. I break into the comm link to see what they’re talking about and hear half a word before the line goes silent.

  Holt looks up at me.

  I start to tell him to get his shit together and act like an officer when something hard clinks against the top of my helmet. Instinctively, I jerk, and bump a body behind me. A localized gravity field centered on the crown of my head is suddenly pulling so hard it feels like my skin is going to peel off my face.

  I try to shout at the pain but the g force notches up, overwhelming my resistance and slamming my head against the inside of my helmet.

  I see stars.

  More sensitive to gravity than me, my implant spasms, sending lightning bolts of pain through my skull.

  Whoever is holding th
e small grav plate to the back of my helmet knows that. It’s no secret what I am. My commissar status guarantees the truth of it.

  My vision collapses to a dark tunnel.

  I’m having trouble drawing breath and I realize my throat is being pressed closed by the g.

  I try to squeeze out an order but only garbled syllables choke through.

  That’s when it hits me what’s happening. They’re trying to kill me.

  I trigger the freeze switches in everyone’s suits.

  Nothing happens.

  Shit.

  Lenox is raising her rifle and looking past me. “You’ll get us all killed. What are you doing?”

  “Stop,” Lieutenant Holt tells her. “Everything’s okay.”

  With her weapon halfway up, Lenox stops moving while still looking at the anonymous person behind me. “What did you do to the major? What is that?”

  Holt says, “Lower your weapon, Sergeant Lenox. That’s an order.”

  Lenox balks.

  Soldiers start to crowd the door outside the airlock, trying to get a peek inside.

  Captain Milliken comes on the line. “It’s a grav plate.”

  That’s when I get it. That’s who’s behind me. Milliken must have been hiding in one of the side rooms, hoping to ambush me when I passed through the hall.

  “It’s pulling nine g’s on the back of his helmet!” says Milliken. He shouts into the comm to make sure the whole platoon hears. “The remote control he has on all our suits, the kill switch he has on every one of us, it’s a gravity switch mounted in this module on the back of his helmet. As long as this grav plate is here, he can’t do anything to us.”

  Lenox glances between Holt and Milliken. “We’re in the middle of a battle.”

  “He’s a Trog spy,” says Holt.

  “What?” I manage to say through my constricting throat.

  “Explain it,” says Brice, suddenly squeezing past the soldiers and stepping into the airlock. He shoves Holt against a wall and holds him there with a hand pressed in the center of his chest. In his other hand, his rifle is raised and pointed at my face. He says, “Explain that, Lieutenant. Do it fast.”