“Very Best of Cream,” Shelly interjected. “You now have two minutes, forty-three seconds to reach minimum safe distance. The elevator takes two minutes and twelve seconds to reach the top.”
“Fine,” Mike said, last to pile in. He hit the up button and the ‘close door’ button, controlling his power so the finger of the suit didn’t go straight through the plate. That would probably break the elevator which would be… bad. “No problem. I eat stress for breakfast.”
The door close and he winced.
“Oh,” Sergent First Class Harkless said. “That’s just… wrong.”
The booming music that had been blasting over the annunciator was cut off. But the elevator was playing the same song, Muzak style.
“Whoever did this…” Mike said. “Just… sick. Shelly. Time?”
“Two minutes, twenty-two seconds…”
“Nearly as sick as I am,” Mike added.
“Yes, sir,” Harkless said.
“Been waiting so long…” Lieutenant Cuelho muttered without really thinking about it.
“To be where I’m going…” Doyle added, his suit absentmindedly rocking back and forth.
“In the sunshine of your lo-o-o-ve!” Third Squad chorused.
“Nah-nana, nah, nah! Nah! Nah! Nah, nanana!” Hutch screamed, plowing an air-guitar on his grav cannon.
“Hutchinson!”
“Sorry, Sergeant.”
“Sort of didn’t complete the mission, sir,” Sergeant Harkless pointed out. “We’re entirely sans Indowy.”
“Hey, they’re all over the place,” Mike said. “If the Darhel want Indowy let them catch their own.” He paused and shook his head. “I hate Muzak.”
“Thank God for Eric Clapton instrumentals, sir,” Harkless said.
“Agreed, Sergeant,” Mike said, rocking back and forth. “The moaning of just we two…” Mike muttered as the doors opened. “Haul ass for the stairs!”
“After you, General,” Harkless said.
“Get moving, Sergeant,” Mike snapped as the platoon pounded past. “I’m faster than you are.”
Mike made it out of the hidden entrance just as the vocals cut off. Not a good sign. The platoon was well ahead of him, spread out in a broad formation and heading for the horizon.
“Twelve seconds, General,” Shelly said. “You’re not yet to minimum safe distance.”
“How bad could it be?” Mike said, panting. He wasn’t, in truth, much of a runner. Short legs and all. “I’ve been much closer to nuclear weapons before. It’s in the ground…”
“Five. Bad. Four. Twenty grams. Three…”
“All units tuck and inertial dump!” Mike shouted, jumping into the air and tucking into a ball.
“One…”
“Just sick.”
And then there was sunshine.
Mike didn’t feel very well loved.
Epilogue
Cally opened her eyes and looked around. Tommy was standing by her bunk with a cup in his hands. From the smell of it, it contained some of Aelool’s herbal tea.
“Status?” she asked, sitting up. Hiberzine didn’t leave any sort of a hangover. You just went right back to the condition you were in before you got shot with it. In Cally’s case, angry.
The room seemed to be a normal “human” style stateroom. She’d been on Himmit ships and this didn’t look like a Himmit ship. It didn’t even look Indowy made. It looked like something that had come out of Titan yards.
“We’re already out of orbit,” Tommy said, handing her the cup. “The Himmit are, as usual, being cagey about where we’re going. But we loaded all the dependents and Indowy before we left. You missed the interesting part.”
“I take it Maise blew up the base,” Cally said.
“Quite spectacularly,” Tommy replied.
“So much for Base One,” Cally said. She took a sip of tea, then lowered her head onto her hand. “Tommy, you’re a really good friend but right now I’m looking for someone to kill. You’re a big guy and it’d be tough, but you know I’d manage. I think I’d rather just be alone right now.”
Tommy nodded, started to speak, then walked out of the stateroom.
“How are you doing?” Tam asked as he walked into the room.
“Fine,” Mike replied. “I don’t even know why I’m in the hospital. I’ve been through much worse explosions in my time.” He paused and thought about it. “Six… seven times.”
“You’re not for long,” Wesley said. “There’s a shuttle standing by to pick you up. Good news, you don’t have to sit through the rest of the briefings. We’ll just send you the minutes.”
“Get his ass off-planet?” Mike said, his face hard. “Thanks very much for killing a bunch of humans, now get as far away as possible?”
“Pretty much,” Tam said. “The good news is you’ll have someone to talk to. The platoon’s training assignment has been permanently suspended. They’re being assigned to operational units.”
“That must thrill the hell out of them,” Mike said. “Tam, this is massively fucked up. How in the hell did an organization like that exist right under our noses? And they were… Good. Jesus Christ, they were good. They stayed true to their salt in a way it’s almost impossible to find these days.”
He was still coming to grips with the feelings he’d had at the last of the battle. The feeling that even though it was insane, stupid, pointless and even dishonorable at a level, he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be.
“Well, they’re dead, now,” Tam said.
“Yes,” Mike said, grimly. “But you’d better find out who survived. Dammit, Tam…”
“Mike,” the general said softly. “It’s not your problem anymore. You need to get out there and make sure we don’t have to face the Posleen as well. I’ll be back here rolling in the pig pit. That’s… my job.”
“And I leave you to it,” Mike said, rolling out of bed. He looked at the hospital gown and snorted. “I take it you brought some clothes.”
“Lieutenant!”
The Ghin removed an aethal piece from the board, looked at it for a moment, then set it aside. He moved another and faintly smiled.
“Let the ever-be-damned Aldenata consider that.”