Hawk Genesis: Peace (Hawk Flight), page 24
John lay on the deck, but he was conscious and able to move. He looked over at Fidel, who was still unconscious, and told Karl, “Head to the carrier, they’ll have a good sickbay.”
Karl passed on John’s instructions and knelt at Fidel’s side. He gently removed Fidel’s hood and felt for a pulse, “Alive. Sir?”
John tried to sit up, but flopped onto his back, “I’m fit as a fiddle.” Karl shook his head, “I’m assuming that’s an archaic term that means you’re almost dead.”
John sighed, “Close enough.”
It took three hours to come alongside the carrier. By that time, they knew that Fidel had suffered some broken ribs and internal injuries, but he was conscious and out of danger. John’s lower left leg was broken, but not shattered, once again proving the value of the suits. Despite taking damage, it had worked well enough to save him from being crushed.
The shuttle eased into a huge hold and settled to the deck. While it aired up Karl checked John’s leg.
The pilot called down from above, “Open the hatch.”
A corpsman hustled through the opening into the compartment, followed by three more. They gently laid Fidel onto a gurney and picked him up. A moment later, they moved John onto another gurney.
Karl stayed by John’s side as they were deposited on a low-slung vehicle. The corpsman tried to tell Karl to back off but he simply ignored her and sat down next to John. He waved his hand in irritation and said, “Get the fucking lead out.”
A half hour later John had a thin cast on his leg, and he was up to his head in a thick jelly-like substance that smelled really, really bad. He asked Karl, who had firmly resisted everyone’s efforts to remove him from the sick bay, “How long do I have to stay in this muck?” Karl smiled like an angel, “Until either I or Jessica tells you you can get out. Sir.”
A corpsman said, “Mr. Chamberlin, I don’t know who Jessica is, but your doctor said that your first session will last two hours.”
John nodded, “I can do that. What about Fidel?” The corpsman replied, “He’s got three broken ribs, two cracked ribs, and a collapsed lung. He’ll be on his back for roughly a week.”
John nodded, and turned back to Karl, “Any information from Fujian?” Karl smiled coldly, “Nine dead, no injured.” John thought about the families of those men, “How long are we stuck here?” Karl smiled, “Sir, I refer you to my previous answer.”
John quietly ordered, “Contact the veterans association. See if they would like to arrange for a meeting.” Karl’s face turned red with anger, “Sir?” John answered, his tone of voice mild, but with steel behind the words, “My leg is broken, but my tongue still works. This planet is critical to our plans. The alternative to success is unthinkable. Make the call.”
Karl stiffened to attention, “Yes sir.”
John grumped, “If that’s your idea of military posture, I’m very much afraid you owe the Marines a lot of back pay. Hassan can collect it.”
Karl protested, “Sir! Are you resorting to blackmail?” John tried to move into a more comfortable position, “I started with blackmail, I’m now moving to outright threats. For example, I can tell Rachel that you like to dress in pink.” Karl was trying not to grin, “Sir, that’s an…that’s simply not true.” John agreed, “Yes, but who is she going to believe, a former Navy Captain, a highly decorated and illustrious officer, or…you.”
Karl looked crestfallen, “Yes sir.”
John finally smiled, “Damn right.”
Fidel was in a matching vat on the other side of John. He said, “Sir, I don’t want you returning to Fujian.” John turned his head, “Agreed; doesn’t mean that Fujian can’t come to us.” Karl laughed, “This I’ve got to see.” John told him, “Yes, you do. Make the arrangements. Assume that I’ll have to call in a few markers, but make it happen, at least from the Navy end. If the veterans refuse to come up, which they will, arrange to pick them up in our shuttle – we can hold the meeting in orbit, away from those fucking pellets.”
Karl sighed, “Peace is not proving to be very peaceful.” John quietly told his friend, “I don’t want you to reveal what you did on the ground. They’ll know that we killed nine people, but I don’t want them to know who did what.”
Karl asked, “How do you feel?” John realized that he wasn’t being asked about his physical wellbeing. He said, “I mourn every death. I mourn Fidel’s injuries, and I dread the nightmares. I also greatly fear that if we simply leave, we’ll not ever be able to return. We have a window of opportunity, and it’s going to close. Hell, it may have already closed, but I don’t think so. I don’t want to think so.”
Karl stood, “Sir, with respect, you’re not going to solve all the world’s problems, but perhaps we can do something here.”
John tried to move again, regretted it again, and said, “Not if you continue to sit on your flabby ass.”
Karl stood and ostentatiously looked, “Sir, at least I have one.”
Karl commed the veteran’s association and wasn’t able to get through to anyone. He told what was probably the same woman who’d greeted them early that morning, “Miss, I work for John Chamberlin. Although your people spoke to Michel Dubois, John Chamberlin is the man who started and funded this operation. You’ve received a great deal of help and assistance, including nine brand new shuttles. He has eight more that are destined for your association. Grenoble received ten, Elyse ten, and you are supposed to get seventeen. Now, our shuttle landed at your field and we went straight to your building. No side trips, and no announcement of who we were. We had no problems getting to your site, but the moment we left, we were tracked, and we were attacked. I don’t know about you people, but John is still willing to extend more help to you. You have one day to think about it. If you decide you’re not interested, we’d like our shuttles back, or payment in full; if you accept, we’ll pick you up in our own shuttle, and we’ll sit in orbit while you tell us what you’re doing to help your veterans. I’m telling you right now, your people are the key to Fujian’s future; if you want war, which is what it looks like to me, prepare for a nuclear wasteland, ‘cause that’s where the next one will end; if you want prosperity and the chance that your people can look up at the sky without fear, then you get your fucking act together and show up.”
Not ten minutes later Karl received a comm. He was immediately asked, “If you aren’t military, why is your shuttle docked at the carrier?” Karl said, “It’s got the only medical clinic that we could trust to treat our people and not shoot them in the back. We openly entered your front door, the one we paid you to buy, but you didn’t have the guts to meet us, and not ten minutes later we were attacked. I’m just a former Marine sergeant, I don’t have the words, knowledge or experience that either Michel or John do, but I do know that your organization can help your veterans, who are vital to your system’s future. The way I see it, John is the only one alive who gives a shit about your people. What did the people of Fujian do for you? What did the federal government do? Not one fucking thing. You haven’t even told me your name.”
After a pause, the comm call ended.
After thirty minutes, Karl received another comm. The caller was the young woman. She said, “Sir, my name is Akiko Kono. I have Mrs. Obihiro for you.”
Karl said, trying not to snarl, “Put her through.” A moment later a distinctly accented voice belonging to a woman said, “Mr. Miscovich, my name is Mrs. Obihiro. I am a representative of the Fujian Veteran’s Association. First, please allow me to offer you my condolences for the attack your people suffered. I assure you that it did not reflect the policy or desires of our veterans. We are attempting to determine how it happened, and if we are able to do so, we shall pass on that information to federal authorities.”
Karl took a deep breath, “Ma’am, I am not a diplomat, I’m just a former Marine grunt. If it had been up to me, we…well, you can imagine. However, Professor Chamberlin tells me that your system’s future hangs in the balance, and it can go either way. He is not an ardent federalist, but he is passionate about humanity, about human civilization, and he believes that the way we, which is to say, humanity, responds to this crisis, will determine whether we have a peaceful future, or a future at all. He wants to arrange to pick you up in his own shuttle and discuss how he can assist you to help your people. He wants to talk about peace, not war, so if you were thinking of rehashing the past, you’d best not bother showing up.”
She asked, suddenly hesitant, “Sergeant, may I call you back after I confer with my people?” Karl thought about his boss - the man he’d come to love – who was recuperating from a broken leg and mild to severe bruising over much of his lower torso. And also, the man who had shielded his bodyguard with his own, fragile body as bullets and pellets thudded and sparked all around him. Karl said, his voice suddenly softer, “Ma’am, how much time do you need?”
She replied, “Ten hours?” Karl told her, “Ten hours is acceptable. I will tell Professor Chamberlin of your call. And, may I offer just one other comment? I think that if he was speaking to you, he would ask that you think of the children, not yet born. He wants for them a better world than we colonists have had.”
Chapter 25
Karl walked slowly down the passageway into the sick bay. He felt oddly at home, yet he realized in that moment that he had changed. He didn’t know when it happened, and he didn’t yet know exactly what that change was, but he was now a different man. Marines claimed that their people never stopped being Marines, but Karl was beginning to glimpse a higher purpose to his life.
Karl entered the sterile white ward and stopped for a moment to chat with Fidel, who seemed almost pathetically eager to return to his duties. He didn’t know what their boss had done, and Karl didn’t think that John would want anyone to mention it. He also thought that Fidel was enjoying a nice, medicated respite from a great deal of pain.
He moved over to the next bed and looked down at John. He was sleeping, largely the result of his doctor’s orders and the resulting medication. His lower abdomen was already badly discolored, but other than his leg, nothing was broken and he would be up and ambulatory within a day or so.
Karl called the team together and they sat in the enlisted mess and ate together. He told them about the call from Mrs. Obihiro. Using her comm, Eleanor promptly accessed the data base on their shuttle and told him, “Mrs. Obihiro: there are three women with that last name who served in the Fujian military. One died – we don’t know the circumstances; one was a corporal in their army, and the third was a full Captain in the rebel navy. Assuming your contact is that last, she is thirty-eight, widowed, mother of five children.”
Karl thanked her and added, “I’ve given her ten hours to call back. I think that our boss will be able to comfortably sit up by then. I’ve told her that we’ll pick up her people in our shuttle.
He sat at the table, sipped some coffee and said, “I’ve been working for the captain for several years. In all that time he rarely ever behaved like a typical officer. He seemed intent on getting his people to understand the task and be fully trained and prepared to accomplish it without a lot of orders. To a simple grunt like me, he always seemed to understand the ultimate goal as well as the immediate assignment, and I can’t recall that he ever made one single strategic mistake. I’m not even certain he made any tactical errors, and that’s one area where I know a little.”
He took another sip and continued, “Since this morning – it seems like longer – I’ve come to realize that he’s never changed, despite his promotion to civilian. He still has a strategic vision of where we’re supposed to get to, and his tactics still seem to be very good. I guess what I’m saying is that I have learned a lot today. The captain suspected that there might be trouble – he thought it would happen before we arrived – but he decided that the potential gain outweighed the known risks, just like he has always done, and despite all my arguments and threats, he simply smiled and told me he was going.”
He took another, long sip and finished, “What I’m saying is that long ago I gave him my loyalty and admiration, and I sort of just continued to be the grunt I’ve always been. The thing is, I was wrong. I owe him, and I think, all of you an apology. Instead of being a grunt, a Marine sergeant whose task was to protect his officer, I should have been more like him. I should have done better. Today, when I had to take that call from Fujian, I felt for the first time that I was able to actually do something. Instead of thinking like a grunt, I had to try to think like the captain, say what he would say, and you know, I found it wasn’t as hard as I imagined. All those countless hours of his stupid stories about some ancient event that nobody remembered much less thought important suddenly made sense: he wasn’t burning oxygen telling us about ancient history, he was teaching us how to think, how to reason when we didn’t have someone around to tell us what to do. I know he would have done better – hell, Rachel would have done better – but I got through to her, and there is a chance that she’ll respond, and the captain will get one more opportunity to change people’s hearts from war to peace, from federals vs rebels to humans for humanity.”
Eleanor nodded, “Who knew?” Karl looked up from his cup, “What?”
She smiled faintly, “Who knew Marines could think?”
Everyone laughed. Karl ostentatiously said, “Record…” Hassan waited for the polite laughter to subside, and then said, “Record: Karl requests a workout with Two By.”
At precisely ten hours, Mrs. Obihiro commed. John took the call. She began by saying, “Captain Chamberlin, I regret to tell you that the leak was in our organization. We have proof that two separate individuals made comm calls out of the facility. We are working with local officials to track down the recipients of those calls. The task is a bit difficult, but we are working on it.” John told her, “Thank you for telling me. My question is this: can we proceed?”
She hesitated again – she was obviously under severe strain – and asked, “What do you want?” John said, “Unfortunately, Michel is somewhere else, or he would have represented us. However, at one point or another, you would have had to sit down with your former enemy, and that is what I’m requesting happen today. We hope that your organization will abide by the agreement and forward your monthly payments back to us. The payments from Elyse, Grenobe, Maya and a few others allowed us to contract for more shuttles, more veteran’s associations. He was correct that we will soon acquire eight additional shuttles – within a month I’m told – and I would have to think seriously about what to do with them if your organization withholds payment. However, the events of early this morning don’t change the facts that your system is in serious trouble, and if something positive doesn’t happen to make the lives of your people better, they’ll continue to think about war and retribution. Therefore, what I want is for us to sit down together. I request that we find a mutually agreeable location and I request that it be soon.”
She said, “Sergeant Miscovich told me that you wanted to meet in your shuttle.” John replied, “If you are agreeable, then that would provide my people a certain amount of security. However, I can see where the people of Fujian might see it as yet another capitulation, and at this stage, that perception might prove deadly to all of our aspirations. May I ask, can you provide assurances that if we were to return, you could keep all of us…safe?”
She asked, “You wish this meeting to be private?” John answered, “I’d like it to be as public as possible.” She thought about that, “You think that would provide security?”
John took a breath – under the circumstances not a deep one, and told her, “Mrs. Obihiro, your system is boiling over with hatred. What possible security is there for me, for my family, or for anyone, anywhere? I do not imply that Fujian is any different from other systems, quite the opposite. They all seethe with barely constrained rage. I wish that all the colonies transform their mutually destructive hatred into something that allows our peoples to live together without the threat of a nuclear holocaust. Instead of hatred and fear, I wish thirty-seven prosperous, growing colony worlds that trade with each other, and support each other. If we do not at least strive for this, we will not have a future. Consider where the recently ended war concluded. The next war will start from that point, will start with weapons of mass destruction and spiral downward until we have nothing but smoking ruins, except there won’t be any more ‘we’.”
She was silent, but he could hear the sounds of a number of people, moving, scraping, making the nearly silent sounds of life. She asked, “Captain Chamberlin, how do you wish to be addressed? You seem to have three hats: military captain, public professor and private head of an organization.” John said, “How about you call me John?”
She took her own breath, “You ask a great deal. I’ll try. May I call you back?” John told her, “Yes.” She asked an oblique question, “Will you remain on the federal carrier?” John was just as vague, “For a day or so. If as I suspect, you encounter difficulties, please let me know.”
