The End of All Things: The Third Instalment (8 page)

“Are you in charge here?”
I asked the Rraey Powell had pointed out to me.

“I will not answer your questions,” the Rraey said to me, in its language, which my BrainPal translated for me.

“I could break something else,” Powell said.
She was listening in.

“Torture isn’t useful to get information,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything about getting information.”

I looked back to her.
“Give me a minute here, please,” I said.
Powell snorted.

I turned back to the Rraey.
“You are hurt,” I said, in its language.
“Let us help you get better.”

“We’re hurt because of that animal over there,” the Rraey said, jerking its head to Powell.

“You are hurt because you attacked us,” I said.
“You cannot attack us and expect nothing to happen in return.”

The creature said nothing to this.

“You are here on a planet you should not be,” I said.
“Helping humans, which you should not do.
You need to tell me why.”

“I will not.”

“We can help you.
We will help you and your soldier here,” I said, pointing to the other injured Rraey.
“You will not survive if you do not get help.”

“I will gladly die.”

“But will you ask this soldier to die too?”
I said.
“Have you asked this soldier what it wants?”

“You’re doing that thing where you’re trying to be nice to someone you were just trying to kill,” Powell said.
“It doesn’t work, because they remember you were trying to kill them five minutes ago.”

“Ilse.”

“I’m just pointing this out.
Someone needs to say it.”

I ignored her and turned back to the Rraey.
“I am Lieutenant Heather Lee of the Colonial Defense Forces,” I said.
“I promise you that from this point forward you will not be harmed.
It’s a promise whether you help me or not.
But if you help me, then I may say to my superiors that you have been useful.
And they will treat you better.”

“We know how you treat your prisoners,” the Rraey said.

“And we know how you treat yours,” I said.
“We can change things now.”

“Kill me and get it over with,” the Rraey said.

“I don’t want to die,” said the other Rraey.

The first Rraey squawked something at his underling, which my BrainPal translated as “[Silence/You are making a shameful utterance].”

“You won’t,” I said, turning my attention to it.
“Help me, solider.
Help me and you will live.
I promise you.”

“I am Specialist Ketrin Se Lau,” it said.
It motioned with its head to the other Rraey.
“This is Commander Frui Ko Tvann.
We are here on behalf of Equilibrium.
We are here because the government of Khartoum has struck a deal with us.”

“What’s the deal?”

“Protection,” it said.
“Once the Colonial Union falls, Equilibrium will protect it from species who will try to raid or take over.”

“In exchange for what?”

Commander Tvann squawked again and tried to strike Lau.
Powell crossed the distance between the two and held her Empee on Tvann.

“In exchange for what?”
I repeated.

“You won’t kill us,” Lau asked.
“You promise.”

“Yes, I promise.
Neither of you.”

“You won’t torture us.”

“We won’t.
We’re going to help you.
I promise, Specialist Lau.”

“Protection in exchange for laying a trap,” Lau said.
“For luring you here.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Powell said.
“The Colonial Union only sent one ship.
Even if the
Tubingen
is destroyed we’ll just send more.
A lot more.
This uprising will fail and then we’ll go after the Rraey for helping them.”

“Unless there’s more to it,” I said, and turned back to Lau.
“What else is there?”

“I don’t know,” Lau said.
“I’m a specialist.
They only told me what I had to know for my part.”

I turned to Tvann.
“And I don’t expect you want to fill me in.”
Tvann turned its head from me.

“So we have a dead end here,” Powell said.

“No,” I said, and then cut off as the
Tubingen
opened a feed, searching for us.
It had been attacked and damaged but had survived and with the help of another ship had destroyed the two ships attacking it.
It was now asking for status reports.

“Well, at least we’re not entirely screwed,” Powell said.

“Call it in,” I said to her.
“Let them know we need immediate medical evac for two Rraey prisoners of war.
Tell them I’ve promised they won’t be further harmed.”

“That’s going to go over well.”

“Just do it.”

“Anything else?”

“Tell them to send another shuttle for the two of us.
We have another mission to finish.”

* * *

On the way back, our shuttle was diverted from the
Tubingen
to the other Colonial Union ship.

“I haven’t heard of the
Chandler
before,” Powell said.

“It’s a State Department ship, not a CDF ship,” I said.

“A State Department ship with a fully operational offensive weapons system.”

“Times have changed,” I said.

“These constraints are hurting my arms,” said Masahiko Okada, the now-former prime minister of Khartoum.
It’s possible that he might still be considered the prime minister by some, but from a practical matter his days in charge of things were now over.
“I’m very uncomfortable.”

“And several of my friends are dead,” Powell said, to Okada.
“So maybe you should think you’re getting the better end of the deal and shut up.”

Okada turned to me.
“If you don’t think people will know about how you’re treating me—”

“Let me throw him out,” Powell said, to me.

Okada turned back to Powell.
“What?”

“Let me throw him out,” Powell repeated to me.
“This shitbucket is the reason Lambert and Salcido are dead.
Not to mention everyone else in the platoon.”

“Not everyone else is dead,” I reminded her.
“Gould and DeConnick survived, too.”

“Gould and DeConnick are both in critical condition,” Powell said.
“They
might
survive.
And if they don’t that leaves just you and me.
Out of an entire fucking platoon.”
She jabbed a finger at Okada.
“I think that rates him getting a space walk without a suit.”

I turned to Okada.
“Your thoughts, Mr.
Prime Minister?”

“It’s the Colonial Union that instigated this rebellion, not the government of Khartoum,” Okada began.

“Oh, that is
it,
” Powell interrupted, and stood up.
“Time for you to breathe some vacuum, motherfucker.”
Okada visibly shrunk away from Powell.

I held up a hand.
Powell stopped advancing on Okada.
“New plan,” I said.
I pointed to Okada.
“You don’t say another single word until after we dock with the
Chandler,
” I glanced back to Powell, “and you don’t toss him into space.”

Okada said nothing more, even after we had landed and some of the
Chandler
’s crew took him away.

“He seems quiet,” the
Chandler
crewmember who approached me said, nodding over to Okada.
Unlike all the others, he was green, which meant he was CDF.

“He was sufficiently motivated,” I said.

“It appears so,” he said.
“Now, then.
Do you remember me, Lieutenant Lee?”

“I do, Lieutenant Wilson,” I said.
I motioned to Powell.
“This is my sergeant, Ilse Powell.”

“Sergeant,” Wilson said, and turned his attention back to me.
“I’m glad you remember me.
I’m supposed to debrief you and catch you up with things.”

“What we’d really like to do is get back to the
Tubingen,
” I said.

“Well,” Wilson said.
“About that.”

“What is it?”

“Maybe we should find someplace to sit down and chat.”

“Maybe you should just tell me right now because otherwise I might punch you, Wilson.”

He smiled.
“You definitely haven’t changed.
All right, here it is: The
Tubingen
survived the attack on her, but ‘survive’ is a relative term.
She’s essentially dead in orbit.
She might have been entirely destroyed but we managed to get here in time and help her fight off the ships attacking her.”

“And how did you do that?”
I asked.
“Arrive in the nick of time.”

“We had a hunch,” Wilson said, “and that’s all I can say about that right now, here, out in the open in a shuttle bay.”

“Hmmmm.”

“My point is that if you really want to head back to the
Tubingen
you may after we’re done debriefing.
But you won’t be staying there.
At best you’ll have time to collect any personal belongings that weren’t destroyed in the battle before the
John Henry
and other ships arrive to take you and all the other survivors of the
Tubingen
back to Phoenix Station for reassignment.
You might as well stay here.
We can have your effects brought to you.”

“How many people died in the attack on the
Tubingen?
” Powell asked.

“Two hundred fifteen dead, another several dozen injured.
That’s not counting your platoon.
Sorry about that.
We’ve retrieved them, by the way.”

“Where are they?”
I asked.

“They’re in one of the mess coolers at the moment.”

“I’d like to see them.”

“I don’t recommend that.
It’s not very dignified.
How they are being stored, I mean.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’ll have it arranged, then.”

“I also want to know about the two Rraey I sent back.”

“They’re in our brig, and receiving medical attention, inasmuch as we can give it to them,” Wilson said.
“Their injuries were substantial but thankfully not terribly complicated.
Mostly broken bones, which we could set and tend.
Which one of you did that, by the way?”

“That would be me,” Powell said.

“You’re fun,” Wilson said.

“You should see me on the second date.”

Wilson smiled at this and turned his attention back to me.
“We received your instruction that they were not to be further harmed.
That was not a problem because we had no intention of doing so.
You do understand we will need to question them.”

“You can question them without harming them,” I said.

“Yes we can,” Wilson said.
“I just want you to be clear that the questioning is likely to be aggressive, even if it’s not physical.
Particularly of Commander Tvann, who is interesting to us for other reasons than just his involvement here.”

“Who’s going to do the questioning?”

“Well, here it’s going to be me.”

“Commander Tvann doesn’t seem very forthcoming.”

“Don’t worry, I think I can get him to talk without breaking anything else in his body.
I’ve worked with Rraey before.
Trust me.”

“All right.
Thank you,” I said.
I nodded in the direction of where Okada went.
“What’s going to happen with him?”

“Him, I’m not going to make too many promises about,” Wilson said.
“He’s managed to perform a neat little trick.
Not only has he betrayed the Colonial Union, he’s also betrayed his own rebellion.”