Guardsmen of Tomorrow (10 page)

With Hookah’s eyes to guide him, he bent and removed the helmet. For a long time, he stood there looking. He knew why it hadn’t fired its laser pistol; the gloved fingers wouldn’t fit inside the trigger guard. Disappointment mingled with relief as he turned away and crossed the umbilical to the
Archangel
.

“It wasn’t alien at all,” he explained to Colonel Straf when he was home again on Mars. “The Kaxfen were a hoax perpetrated by pirates to keep the Guard away from their strongholds.” He shook his head, still filled with a cer-tain disappointment. An alien species! Surely somewhere among the stars… But where?

He was glad he hadn’t started a war.

Straf poured two more cups of coffee and set one in front of Dawes. “For my parents and myself, I thank you, Chil. Given everything, it’s a miracle you saved those people.”

Chilson Dawes groped for his cup with one hand. With the other he stroked Hookah, who was curled purring on his lap. He had an amusing view of the underside of Straf’s desk, numerous secret wads of chewing gum, and his own crossed legs.

“I never believed in miracles,” he said after a thoughtful silence, “but the blind were made to see.”

THE END

by Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer’s novels
The Terminal Experiment, Starplex, Frameshift
, and
Factoring Humanity
were all finalists for the Hugo Award, and
The Terminal
Experiment
won the Nebula Award for Best Novel of the Year. His latest novel is
Calculating God
. He lives near Toronto; visit his Web site at www.sfwriter.com.

They say flashbacks are normal. Five hundred years ago, soldiers who’d come home from Vietnam experienced them for the rest of their lives. Gulf War vets, Colombian War vets, Utopia Planitia vets-they all relived their battle experiences, over and over again.

And now I was reliving mine, too.

But this would be different, thank God. Oh, I would indeed relive it all, in precise detail, but it would only happen just this once.

And for that, I was grateful.

In war, you’re always taught to hate the enemy-and we had been at war my whole life. As a boy, I’d played with action figures. My favorite was Rod Roderick, Trisystems Interstellar Guard. He was the perfect twenty-fifth-century male specimen: tall, muscular, with coffee-colored skin; brown, almond-shaped eyes; and straight brown hair cropped short. Now that I was a Star Guard myself, I don’t think I looked quite so dashing, but I was still proud to wear the teal-and-black uniform.

I’d had an Altairian action figure, too: dark green, naked-like the animal it was-with horns on its head, spikes down its back, and teeth that stuck out even when its great gash of a mouth was sealed. Back then, I’d thought it was a male-I’d always referred to it as “he”-but now, of course, I knew that there were three Altairian sexes, and none of them corresponded precisely to our two.

But, regardless of the appropriate pronoun, I hated that toy Altairian-just as I hated every member of its evil species.

The Altairian action figure could explode, its six limbs and forked tail flying out of its body (little sensors in the toy making sure they never headed toward my eyes, of course). My Rod Roderick action figure frequently blew up the Altairian, aiming his blaster right at the center of the thing’s torso, at that hideous concavity where its heart should have been, and opening fire.

And now I was going to open fire on real Altairians. Not with a blaster sidearm-there was no one-on-one combat in a real interstellar war-but with something far more devastating.

I still had my Rod Roderick action figure; it sat on the dresser in my cabin here, aboard the
Pteranodon
. But the Altairian figure was long gone-when I was fifteen, I’d decided to really blow it up, with explosives I’d concocted with a chemistry set.

I’d watched in giddy wonder as it burst into a thousand plastic shards.

The
Pteranodon
was one of a trio of Star Guard vessels now approaching Altair III: the others were the
Quetzal-coatlus
and the
Rhamphorhynchus
. Each had a bridge shaped like an arrowhead, with the captain-me in the
Pteranodon‘
?, case-at the center of the wide base, and two rows of consoles converging at a point in front.

But, of course, you couldn’t see the walls; the consoles floated freely in an all-encompassing exterior hologram.

“We’re about to cross the orbit of their innermost moon,” said Kalsi, my navigator.

“The Allies should detect us soon.”

I steepled my fingers in front of my face and stared at the planet, which was showing a gibbous phase. The harsh white light from its sun reflected off the wide oceans.

The planet was more like Earth than any I’d ever seen; even Tau Ceti IV looks less similar. Of course, TC4 had had no intelligent life when we got to it; only dumb brutes. But Altair III did indeed have intelligent life forms: it was perhaps unfortunate that first contact, light-years from here, had gone so badly, all those decades ago.

We never knew who had fired first-our survey ship, the
Harmony
, or their vessel, whatever it had been named. But, regardless, both ships were wrecked in the encounter, both crews killed, bloated bodies tumbling against the night-human ones and Altairians, too. When the rescue ships arrived, those emerald-dark corpses were our first glimpse of the toothy face of the enemy.

When we encountered Altairians again, they said we’d started it. And. of course, we said they’d started it. Attempts had been made by both sides to halt the conflict, but it had continued to escalate. And now-Now, victory was at hand. That was the only thing I could think about today.

The captains of the
Rhamphorhynchus
and
Quetzal-coatlus
were both good soldiers, too, but only one of our names would be immortalized by history-the one of us who actually got through the defenses surrounding the Al-tairian home world, and-And that one was going to be me, Ambrose Donner, Star Guard. A thousand years from now, nay, ten thousand years hence, humans would know who their savior had been. They would-

“Incoming ships,” said Kalsi. “Three-no, four-
Nidichar-class
attack cruisers.”

I didn’t have to look where Kalsi was pointing; the holographic sphere instantly changed orientation, the ships appearing directly in front of me. “Force screens to maximum,” I said.

“Done,” said Nguyen, my tactical officer.

In addition to my six bridge officers, I could see two other faces: small holograms floating in front of me. One was Heidi Davinski, captain of the
Quetzalcoatlus;
the other, Peter Chin, captain of the
Rhamphorhynchus
. “I’ll take the nearest ship,”

Heidi said.

Peter looked like he was going to object; his ship was closer to the nearest
Nidichar
than Heidi’s was. But then he seemed to realize the same thing I did: there would be plenty to go around. Heidi had lost her husband Craig in an Altairian attack on Epsilon Indi II; she was itching for a kill.

The
Quetzalcoatlus
surged ahead. All three of our ships had the same design: a lens-shaped central hull with three spherical engine pods spaced evenly around the perimeter. But the holoprojector colorized the visual display for each one to make it easy for us to tell them apart: Heidi’s ship appeared bright red.

“The
Q
is powering up its TPC,” said Nguyen. I smiled, remembering the day I blew up my Altairian toy. Normally, a tachyon-pulse cannon was only used during hyperspace battles; it would be overkill in orbital maneuvering. Our Heidi
really
wanted to make her point.

Seconds later, a black circle appeared directly in front of me: the explosion of the first
Nidichar
had been so bright, the scanners had censored the information rather than blind my crew.

Like Peter Chin, I had been content to let Heidi have the first kill; that was no big deal. But it was time the
Pter-anodon
got in the game.

“I’ll take the ship at 124 by 17,” I said to the other two captains. “Peter, why don’t-Suddenly my ship rocked. I pitched forward in my chair, but the restraining straps held me in place.

“Direct hit amidships-minimal damage,” said Cham-plain, my ship-status officer, turning to face me. “Apparently they can now shield their torpedoes against our sensors.”

Peter Chin aboard the
Rhamphorhynchus
smiled. “I guess we’re not the only ones with some new technology.”

I ignored him and spoke to Nguyen. “Make them pay for it.”

The closer ship was presumably the one that had fired the torpedo. Nguyen let loose a blast from our main laser; it took a tenth of a second to reach the alien ship, but when it did, that ship cracked in two under the onslaught, a cloud of expelled atmosphere spilling out into space. A lucky shot; it shouldn’t have been that easy.

Still: “Two down,” I said, “two to go.”

“Afraid not, Ambrose,” said the Heidi hologram. “We’ve picked up a flotilla of additional Altairian singleships leaving the outer moon and heading this way. We’re reading a hundred and twelve distinct sublight-thruster signatures.”

I nodded at my colleagues. “Let’s teach them what it means to mess with the Trisystems Interstellar Guard.”

The
Rhamphorhynchus
and the
Quetzalcoatlus
headed off to meet the incoming flotilla. Meanwhile, I had the
Pter-anodon
fly directly toward the two remaining
Nidichars
, much bigger than the singleships the others were going up against. The nearer of the
Nidichars
grew bigger and bigger in our holographic display. I smiled as the details resolved themselves.
Nidichar-class
vessels were a common Altairian type, consisting of three tubular bodies, parallel to each other, linked by connecting struts. Two of the tubes were engine pods; the third was the habitat module. On the
Nidichars
I’d seen before, it was easy to distinguish the living quarters from the other two. But this one had the habitat disguised to look just like another propulsion unit. Earlier in the war, the Star Guard had made a habit of shooting out the engine pods, humanely leaving the crew compartment intact. I guess with this latest subterfuge, the Allies thought we’d be reluctant to disable their ships at all.

They were wrong.

I didn’t want to use our tachyon-pulse cannon; it depleted the hyperdrive and I wanted to keep that in full reserve for later. “Shove some photons down their throats,” I said.

Nguyen nodded, and our lasers-thoughtfully animated in the holo display so we could see them-lanced out toward first one and then the other Altairian cruiser.

They responded in kind. Our force screens shimmered with auroral colors as they deflected the onslaught.

We jousted back and forth for several seconds, then my ship rocked again. Another stealth torpedo had made its way past our sensors.

“That one did some damage,” said Champlain. “Emergency bulkheads are in place on decks seven and eight. Casualty reports are coming in.”

The Altairians weren’t the only ones with a few tricks at their disposal. “Vent our reserve air tanks,” I said. “It’ll form a fog around us, and-”

“And we’ll see the disturbance created by an incoming torpedo,” said Nguyen.

“Brilliant.”

“That’s why they pay me the colossal credits,” I said. “Meanwhile, aim for the struts joining the parts of their ships together; let’s see if we can perform some amputations.”

More animated laserfire crisscrossed the holobubble. Ours was colored blue; the aliens‘, an appropriately sickly green.

“We’ve got the casualty reports from that last torpedo hit,” said Champlain. “Eleven dead; twenty-two injured.”

I couldn’t take the time to ask who had died-but I’d be damned if any more of my crew were going to be lost during this battle.

The computer had numbered the two remaining
Nidichars
with big sans-serif digits.

“Concentrate all our fire on number two,” I said. The crisscrossing lasers, shooting from the eleven beam emitters deployed around the rim of our hull, converged on the same spot on the same ship, severing one of the three connecting struts. As soon as it was cut, the beams converged on another strut, slicing through it, as well. One of the cylindrical modules fell away from the rest of the ship. Given the plasma streamers trailing from the stumps of the connecting struts, it must have been an engine pod. “Continue the surgery,” I said to Nguyen. The beams settled on a third strut.

I took a moment to glance back at the
Rhamphorhynchus
and
Quetzalcoatlus
. The Altairian singleships were swarming around the
Rhamphorhynchus
(colored blue in the display). Peter Chin’s lasers were sweeping through the swarm, and every few seconds I saw a singleship explode. But he was still overwhelmed.

Heidi, aboard the
Quetzalcoatlus
, was trying to draw the swarm’s fire, but with little success. And if she fired into the cloud of ships, either her beams or debris from her kills might strike the
Rhamphorhynchus
.

I swung to look at the hologram of Peter’s head. “Do you need help?” I asked.

“No, I’m okay. We’ll just-”

The fireball must have roared through his bridge from stern to bow; the holocamera stayed on-line long enough to show me the wall of flame behind Pete, then the flesh burning off his skull, and then-And then nothing; just an ovoid of static where Peter Chin’s head had been. After a few seconds, even that disappeared.

I turned to the holo of Heidi, and I recognized her expression: it was the same one I myself was now forcing onto my face. She knew, as I did, that the eyes of her bridge crew were on her. She couldn’t show revulsion. She especially couldn’t show fear-not while we were still in battle. Instead, she was displaying steel-eyed determination. “Let’s get them,” she said quietly.

I nodded, and-

And then my ship reeled again. We’d all been too distracted by what had happened to the
Rhamphorhynchus
to notice the wake moving through the cloud of expelled gas around our ship. Another stealth torpedo had exploded against our hull.