The Expendable Few: A Spinward Fringe Novel (2 page)

The boots I’m wearing are almost exactly the same as the ones I wore when I led a burster shuttle against the Courageous. That was the last mission Mary and I had together, a fantastic conclusion to that chapter of my career, and to the time we had on the same crew. There’s nothing like having a squad leader who knows you so well that you swear you’re communicating telepathically.

My heavy kickers echo in the subdued environment of the departure deck. The black metal deck is like a stark canvass where hundreds of travellers slowly creep up the lines to the boarding gates. Through the transparent hull above I can see hundreds of ships making their way around the East Port Pod. This is my fifth visit to a departure gate since the end of my last tour. I’ve sent off more friends since I’ve been back than I have in years.

“So, I’m all clear,” my sister says with a forced smile.

I embrace her for a good long time and end it with a squeeze. “You tell Mom and Dad that I’m only a couple of years behind. I’m doing one more tour and then I’m out of this can.” She’s twenty four, five years younger than me. I still remember when she was a toddler, following me around endlessly. It was annoying back then, but now it’s one of those memories that makes you laugh, adds weight to love.

“You’ve said that before,” Connie reminds me. She’s on the verge of tears. “I’m not going to tell them unless you’re sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” I tell her in a whisper. “No doubt in my mind this time. I’ll even try to take Mary with me.”

“All right, I’ll tell them. You stay safe, though,” she says, a tear escaping and rolling down her right cheek. “Make it through the tour, it’s dangerous out there.”

“You haven’t heard? I’m the great Commander Patterson; another tour on a starship is like vacation.”

The boarding light paints the people around us green. “That’s the last call. Give us another hug,” she tells me.

I oblige and kiss the top of her blonde head. “You know, I saw this coming. How long can a botanist live in a space station? Forests in an oversized can can’t be like jungles in the wild.”

That brings on the short laugh that I was looking for. Even with our differences we always manage to cheer each other up when it’s important. “Okay,” she pulls away, wiping away tears. “I’ll see you after your next tour. Promise me, Clark.”

“I promise.” I say it, I mean it.

There are quiet, quick goodbyes happening all around us. I shouldn’t feel alone when she walks off with luggage in tow. We’ve parted ways more times than I can count, playing this scene in a mirrored stance over and over again. Maybe that’s it. This is the first time I’m sending her off.

When I shipped out I always hated the short stretch of time while I stood in line after we’d said our goodbyes. I knew she was looking, that I was being watched as I slowly made my way through the queue. I never knew whether to look back and acknowledge her or just stare straight ahead, providing a last, stoic image of myself before disappearing into space. I stare at her. It could be years before we see each other again, and unlike many officers I’ve known, I tell my sister everything when we get together.

She turns towards me after a while as though suddenly realising that I’m watching from behind the blue line and makes a shooing motion. I laugh silently, something that probably looks pretty strange to a few people around me, but I don’t care. I don’t care about being late for work, either; it’s only report overview. I’m one of those poor sods who checks over other officers’ work if they’re on probation. It pays well, and I get to keep in touch with Fleet from the dockside instead of getting rusty while I wait for my tour in the field to begin.

Connie gets to the gate and smiles at the guard to the right. They are in full plated, dark green combat armour and stand a head taller. She’s nervous. The guard on her left steps behind Connie, expertly gathering her wrists behind her back.

Connie struggles, and the guard snaps a quick restraint band closed around her midsection, pinning her forearms to her back at awkward angles. I realise I’m running towards her when I burst through the front of the line.

“Hold there,” the remaining guard says, putting his hand out.

I finish crossing the space between us in a few more steps and my training kicks in. It doesn’t matter whether or not he’s wearing combat armour - leverage is leverage. I kick the back of his knee as I plant my hand against his shoulder. He hits the ground and I keep running towards Connie. Alarms go off, the whole area is painted red.

“Stop! I can clear this up! I’m a commander with Fleet!” I call after the other guard as he shoves my sister to the ground and turns on me, drawing his sidearm.

Other guards are rushing towards the scene, and I’m suddenly aware of how badly I’ve handled the situation. I put my hands above my head slowly and get on my knees. “I’m Commander Clark Patterson with Freeground Fleet. That’s my sister, Connie Patterson. I can clear up whatever’s going on.”

Connie twists towards me and our eyes meet. From where she’s laying on the deck she mouths, “I’m sorry,” and everything gets worse.

“I’m sorry, Commander,” the guard tells me. “You’ll have to take this up with Fleet Intelligence.”

Then he blasts me in the face with his stunner.

What’s the first thing I realise? My Command and Control Unit, the cornerstone to communication and a device that’s been on my forearm for ninety-nine percent of every day of my life for years, is gone. I’m laying down on a firm cot. When I open my eyes the rest of the picture comes clear.

This is my first stay in the stockade. Cheap metal walls, moulded plastic floors and ceilings. Old fashioned bars keep me in. A metal toilet and sink are there to keep me clean.

“Good morning,” says someone from beyond the bars. It’s a woman with black pin-prick eyes and a too wide jaw. It’s like genetics dealt her a bum hand. Why people like that don’t get modifications when they come of age, I’ll never know. “Call me Shannon.”

Just like that I realise I’m talking to Fleet Intelligence. No rank, no presentation of docket number or charges, and she’s wearing a dark green and grey military vacsuit without insignia. She doesn’t even have a Command and Control Unit. “So, how are you folks going to disappear me? Airlock? Matter recycler with the safeties disabled?”

“You have a dark impression of us, Commander Patterson,” she says, a little too slowly. I already want to rattle her by the shoulders until answers start falling out.

“Why did you detain my sister?”

“She’s a traitor, what the Order of Eden calls a West Keeper,” Shannon says, leisurely crossing her legs and straightening a crease in the sleeve of her vacsuit.

“Bullshit,” I reply, stretching the word out, weighing it down with my disbelief and outrage.

“All the evidence is there, Commander. Two months and three days ago, she sent her hundred thousand credits in from our planet-side colony and received an encoded transmission. A few days after you returned from your last tour she started relaying everything you said to the Order of Eden. You really should watch those family status taps. Anyone related to you can track everything you do.”

I stare at her as these ridiculous words come falling out of her little mouth. It feels like my skull is shrinking. There is no worse enemy to humanity than the Order of Eden. They released a virus that infected artificial intelligences everywhere so they would attack anyone who didn’t send one hundred thousand Regent Galactic credits in. West Keepers are their spies, and, to my knowledge, no one I know has ever met one. “Bullshit,” I repeat.

“Tell me,” Shannon starts, completely unaffected by the situation. “Has your sister had more interest in your job than usual? Especially through Status Comm? You’re in a sensitive position, overseeing probationers. They’re located across the fleet, and you’re qualified to monitor infantry as well as fleet officers. I see your general aptitude tests scores are relatively high. You’re an intelligent man, think about it.”

I don’t want to think about it. There’s a better reason behind any evidence she’s presenting here.

“She was taking that transport to Icarus. From there she would travel to Aphrodite, an Order of Eden world where followers are rewarded for service.” Shannon leaned forward in her chair, her beady dark eyes peering into mine. “Do you know what she traded to reach that kind of status in the Order? It’s like leaping from Ensign to Captain in a week.”

I search through memories of conversations I had with Connie over the network since I’ve been back and catch myself. There’s no way she’s guilty, why am I even entertaining the idea? “She doesn’t have the access.” The officer in me takes over for a moment. “Let me see the evidence. You have the wrong woman and I can prove it.”

“She gave them the location of the Sunspire,” Shannon whispers. “That ship that you’ve been checking in on because you’re such a fan of her former crew. The crew that ran her when the ship was called the First Light - Jonas Valent, Ayan Rice, Terry McPatrick, and so on - your obsession with that dark spot of history led her straight to it. Now the Order of Eden are sending ships into the Sunspire’s hunting ground.”

“I was researching the Paladin incident,” I explain. I don’t know why, something about this bitch makes me want to talk.

She smiles at me, obviously satisfied. “And you happen to have the clearance to see exactly how the Sunspire destroyed a super-carrier while under the influence of the Holocaust Virus. Where were you when you looked up that information? Think for a moment.”

I was in my sister’s living room, waiting for her to return from the store. “Let me see the evidence,” I repeat. “Please. I have to clear her.”

“Fleet Legal, Intelligence, and a Parliament representative have reviewed your sister’s case. She’ll be executed in twelve hours,” Shannon says as she stands and starts walking towards the outer door in one motion.

“She’s innocent!”

The outer door opens.

I rush to the bars and collide with them so hard that I’m sure I crack a rib or two. “Please! Give her a reprieve so I can look at the evidence, speak with her representative!”

“Her lawyer has already applied for a stay, it was denied. We’re reviewing your case next,” Shannon says over her shoulder as she passes through the thick outer door. It slams shut behind her. Grief thickens time, stretching minutes into what feels like hours and days.

At first I’m frantic, trying to find a way to get my sister free of this situation. “Let me see her!” I shout at the walls, knowing that surveillance is picking it up. “She’s innocent!” And finally, in my desperation I add, “It was me! I’m the West Keeper!”

I’m dealing with Fleet Intelligence. I know none of it will work. They act on evidence. I could tell them I’m a spy representing every organisation that’s ever stood against the Freeground Nation but without proof they’ll just leave me alone. Taking the blame for whatever Connie’s done won’t save her.

Whatever she’s done. Just like that, I believe it. Connie has been interested in my history of service, in the supervisor work I’ve been doing whenever we talk on Status Comm. She even put up with me gabbing on about my fanboy fascination with the First Light crew. I believe it all and collapse onto the cot. “Let me see her,” I say to whoever’s watching, hoping they haven’t forgotten their sympathy. “Please.”

Hours pass. Enough hours for me to start thinking that I’ll never see my sister again. I can’t handle it. I’ve seen people fall apart in the service before. I admit that I’ve never sympathised. I thrive in the command structure, love travelling beyond the invisible boarders of the Freeground Nation, and I consider myself a die hard patriot. Just like Jonas Valent when he set out. He lost his parents in a terrorist attack, and it broke him. He didn’t commit to another tour of duty until they cornered him into it.

When I woke up this morning, I loved Freeground Fleet, even with the complications that it brought into the lives of my friends and family. Right now there’s nothing I hate more, and I’ve never hated so hard in my life. You can’t sit idly while that kind of inferno burns you alive from the inside, so I start doing pushups.

The cell is only just wide enough for me to go all out, and I welcome the burn when it comes. I’m pumping the deck away from me so hard that I’m getting thirty centimetres of air by the time I hear Connie’s voice. “I’m so sorry, Clark,” she says.

I slip and scrape my hand, then roll onto my side. The hologram is so perfect that it’s like she’s standing over me in the cell. I know she’s somewhere else, but every instinct drives me to take my baby sister in my arms. “The representative they gave me tried everything, but when you’re guilty...” She sighs, tears rolling down her cheeks. “God, I told myself I wouldn’t fall apart.” She shakes her head.

“They won’t show me the records.” My lame way of trying to tell her that I’m doing everything I can. “I can’t even pull rank.” An idiotic way of saying I want to stop what’s happening, but can’t. Her holographic image kneels down and looks me in the eye. I’ve never felt so small and powerless.

“Mom and Dad are already on Icarus,” she tells me. “It was my idea.” She starts sobbing so hard that she has to heave breath in. “They’re safe, happy. There’s no safer place-” she used to hyperventilate when she was young, and for the first time in a decade she can’t breathe.

“It’s all right,” I reassure her. I’m up on my knees, wishing I could take care of her one last time. “Just breathe, everything will be fine.” It won’t be.

Someone injects her with something; I only see a white gloved hand. Just like that, she can breathe again, and she looks me right in the eyes. “I’m guilty. I was approached on the Freeground colony before the riots,” she explains in a rush. “I’ve been spying for the Order ever since so I could move to Icarus. Nowhere is safe if you’re not with the Order of Eden, not even Freeground, and I wanted to leave, to see forests and live in a real colony.”