“Find the Voors?” she asks, bold as whiskey.
“We’re on board, Captain,” I say. “Carry out your orders. We’ll move back to the southern gate and wait for all of you before we abandon the Drifter.”
“I need your assurance that you understand my orders supersede any others,” Coyle says. There are dark moments coming, that’s what I get from her weird, don’t hit me, little girl look. Orders are orders whether you like them or not. Captain Coyle does not like her orders. Not one bit. But she’s an excellent Skyrine.
SNKRAZ.
“I don’t know why you didn’t confide in us in the first place, Captain,” DJ says dreamily, rubbing his neck. There are streaks on his cheeks, I notice for the first time, like he’s been rubbing them with green dust.
“What’s with him?” de Guzman asks.
“He’s tired,” I say. “Like all of us.”
“Execute in sequence,” Coyle says. “Need to know. Anyway, it’s all out now. We came back because our detonators aren’t up to the task. We’re taking another pair down to the Church, and then we’ll climb up and join you at the southern gate. Apologies, Master Sergeant. We’ll leave Lance Corporal Medvedev with you.”
So she, too, knows about the Church.
The ladies slip down the hole beneath the hatch, covering us as they depart. De Guzman goes last. And just as suddenly as it began it’s over, like a wicked, ugly dream.
“Don’t listen to them,” Vee-Def says. “They want us dead. All of us. It’s a suicide mission.”
DJ says, “Strong tea, ain’t it?”
COLD COMFORT
Alice Harper has called a minivan to the curved drive outside our building. In the rearmost seat, far away from the driver—who sits behind a plastic shield anyway, and probably isn’t listening—I continue my story, speaking low, eyes darting at the bright, cloudy day, wondering where she’s taking me but not really caring.
I feel very funny indeed. This isn’t Cosmoline, nor is it getting used again to Earth air and gravity. My mind is filling again with ghostly thoughts, visuals, details, all fragmented and swirly. Not direct experience, not sensual input or something I read or saw, more like a direct feed into my cortex. Maybe it’s another kind of angel taking form in my skull, trying to awaken. It hurts, sort of—but this is an interesting sort of pain, like freshly exercised muscles.
Then my mood flips. All things unexpected turn out badly; that’s the truth of battle. Most of the things we do expect turn out badly, as well. I’m not a happy camper, in any case, and my innards are knotting—both stomach and brain.
“I’m going to be sick,” I say.
“No, you aren’t,” Alice says.
“I am sick, inside,” I say.
“Not really,” she says. She sounds like she knows something but she doesn’t want to tell me, not here, not yet. And suddenly that’s okay. I’m compliant again, complaisant. I do feel strange, but I trust her. That makes no sense, even if she is pretty and a good cook and knows how to take charge.
She fed me cioppino. Fish and clams and crab and vegetables. Delicious.
“Did you drug me?” I ask.
“No,” she says firmly, and pats my knee before unhitching and moving up front to talk to the driver. When she returns, she tells me, “You didn’t come back as Master Sergeant Venn, did you?”
“No,” I say.
“Joe sent you back with another ID, and in the crowding and confusion, out on the dust and on the orbital—nobody checked, right?”
“Or didn’t care. Focus on getting us all home.”
“Joe figured the brass would take a couple of days to start putting together all your stories. A couple of days before they decided to round you all up and isolate you. That’s why he told you to stay away from MHAT.”
“Right,” I say.
“He didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to join you right away. Too many eggs in one basket. So he sent me. And no, I did not drug you. But you are now full of essential supplements and vitamins.”
“Are those making me sick?”
“You’re not sick,” she emphasizes, a little ticked. Her patience is wearing thin. I am trying her patience. I am trying her patience on for size and finding it’s just too sheer. I can see through it. I can be either patient or impatient.
Shit, I am drugged—looping out and in, flying free…
And then, not.
My head is clear as a ringing bell.
“What the fuck happened up there?” I ask her.
“You tell me,” she says. “But not here. We’ll be where we’re going soon, in an hour.”
“And where is that?”
“Safe, quiet, remote. Joe says he’ll try to be there when we arrive.”
“We both made it, you know. We both got off Mars.”
“I know.”
“They wanted to kill us. All of us.”
“So I heard.”
“But you want me to wait before I learn the truth, don’t you? Before I figure it all out, or somebody tells me.”
She nods. “Patience. Won’t be long, Vinnie.”
On the return trip, before we slipped into the Cosmoline, the orbital crew promised us all campaign medals stamped with our company blaze. But what’s inside my head, what’s happening to me, and maybe to others besides me—to DJ, for example—
Will shove all that aside.
I’m being hustled away by a zaftig, pretty female who’s a great cook, knows how to sling and deliver the right supplements, claims she knows Joe—and also knows what’s good for me.
“One last thing,” I say.
“One last thing,” she agrees, leaning in on the bench seat, watching me closely.
Very softly, so the driver can’t hear, “I’m valuable, ain’t I?”
“You’re fucking irreplaceable, Vinnie.”
TEAL’S WAY
We make steps, one after the next, getting farther and farther away from the chamber of kobold slaughter, from the hatch, from Captain Coyle, just picking a way out, a way up. God help me, my brain is still on overdrive. I need distraction from thoughts about Coyle, about our sisters, about orbital command.
And so I think about kobolds. What are they hoping to achieve? Are they like automated termites, just digging for the hell of it—turning the entire Drifter into a rotting log of rock and metal? Maybe that’s it.
We’ve been moving this way and that, ever upward, for about an hour, when we see a light fly back across the shining metal ceiling over our heads, and DJ shouts, “It’s Michelin! And Neemie!”
This passage is not very wide but we all pack together, shining our beams in each other’s faces. Neemie and Michelin look like they’ve been through a grinder. Their skintights are badly lacerated, helms broken and faceplates torn away, and Michelin is clutching his arm to his chest. It looks broken.
Ackerly tries to help Michelin but he jerks aside, eyes showing whites all around like a terrified horse.
“Where are the others?” I ask.
Michelin points up, down, then around with his good arm, face ghostly white. He says, “Shit’s falling from so high we can’t even smell it.”
Neemie grimaces. “Don’t mess with him,” he says. “Talk to me. While I still have a clue.”
Michelin starts to sing, “If I only had a clue…” Neemie gently puts his hand over his mouth. Michelin folds down against a wall and slumps his head.
“Tell us about Coyle,” I say.
“She got final instructions from that Korean general, Kwak, before he died. That’s why they’re all here, I think.”