Outriders (38 page)

“We couldn’t evacuate, captain, not without tipping our hand. But thanks to you and your team, we didn’t lose anything essential.” Self seemed to realize what he had just said, cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be callous about it. Of course it’s a tragedy. Every loss of life is. But on a strategic level, at the scale of full-blown war, this is a blow we can absorb. Take what solace you can in that.”

“We’re not
at
war, Self,” Lincoln said.

“Not yet, perhaps,” Self answered. “But it’s coming. I’m sure you’re familiar with the old saying: twice a coincidence, three times, enemy action? This makes three. NID’s been targeted, and now we’re going to turn things around.”

“So that’s it?” said Lincoln, finally looking up at the other man. “You’re just going to take our work, and use it for whatever ends you see fit?”

“Look, I’m doing what I can. I’ve requested that the 519th remain attached to my group at NID, so I can keep you part of the process. I don’t mean to diminish any of what you’ve done. And you’re a smart man, captain. I’m certain you don’t
really
believe you’re the only ones that have been working overtime on this. You’ve given us some additional tools, and we’re grateful. But please show us the same courtesy in remembering that you haven’t done everything.”

“You can’t have Prakoso,” Lincoln said. “He’s in our custody, and he’ll remain that way.”

Self smiled thinly, a cracked mask showing his patience was waning.

“No, he’s in
our
custody now, as he should have been from the beginning.”

“I gave him my word.”

“And what value is that?” Self asked, and now his anger was seeping out. “You’re a soldier, Captain Suh. That’s it. A soldier. You don’t make policy, you don’t make deals. If you thought you had any sort of authority in this matter, then you were either sadly misinformed or gravely mistaken. Now, my team and I are going to leave and get back to work. And you and your team will stand down.”

“Those aren’t my orders,” Lincoln said. He stood up, drew his shoulders back, dropped his chin to reinforce the point.

“They will be, shortly,” Self responded, undaunted. “Don’t take it so hard, Suh. Nothing about this is personal. You and your team have done excellent work. But it’s time to hand off now. I’m sure there’s going to be plenty more for you to do in the coming weeks. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another long flight ahead of me.”

“You’re not going anywhere with Prakoso.”

“You’ll have to talk with the Marines about that, captain. And there are a lot more of them than there are of you.”

Self brushed past him to the door, but before he opened it, he paused. His head went down, his shoulders dropped. Wrestling with himself over something. When he spoke, he didn’t turn to look at Lincoln.

“My sister-in-law was stationed at that facility,” he said. He paused, took a breath, glanced back over his shoulder. “We all have sacrifices to make, captain. Burdens to bear. Secrets to keep, terrible as they are. But these are the jobs we signed up for. Do yours. Trust me to do mine.”

He opened the door then, slid out between Thumper and Mike, and disappeared down the passageway. Lincoln felt a pang of sympathy for the man. And then immediately wondered if there was any truth to the bit about the sister-in-law. People like Self, you never really could tell.

Thumper leaned around the entrance to the briefing room.

“So?” Thumper said. “What’s going on?”

Lincoln didn’t know how to tell her. Or even what to tell her, for that matter. “I need to call Mom.”

“
I
JUST GOT
the word myself,” Almeida said. His face was still red from the tirade he had undoubtedly unleashed, and Lincoln couldn’t help but feel sorry for whoever had had to deliver the news to the old man.

“So it’s true?” Lincoln asked. “We’re standing down?”

“NID doesn’t tell us what to do, as much as they like to think they can,” the colonel said. “Best they can do is pressure my boss. And I’m getting some heat from Higher, but I can handle it for the time being.”

“Self made it sound like it’s a done deal. Like we’re going to war.”

“Things are moving that direction. You have to understand, plenty of people down here think war with Mars is inevitable. Nobody knows what that’s going to be like, the first time two planets get after it. No one’s done it before. I get the impression that some of our top brass seem to think we might as well kick it off and see what lessons we can learn, while we’ve still got the upper hand. So yeah, we’re on that road, unless you dig up something convincing that sends us somewhere else.”

“No pressure,” Lincoln said.

“I told you the stakes were high before you signed up. Don’t blame me.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure you made that all especially clear at the time. What about Prakoso?”

“Hands are tied on that, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Lincoln. There’s only so much even an old goat like me can do.”

“So what are we supposed to do from here?”

“Like I told you earlier, chase it down, wherever it leads. Keep doing what you’re doing. Just don’t count on NID for support. Worse comes to worst, I’ll tell everyone you’re on a training mission. Oh, and try to keep your gear requisitions to a minimum, huh? You about broke my budget for the whole year with whatever you put together out there.”

Almeida was trying to lighten the mood, but it fell flat. Lincoln sighed, and shook his head. He felt empty, lost. More off course than he’d ever felt in his life. He thought back to that stupid document he’d been working on, the one where he’d almost declared the whole series of operations since Luna a success.

“You know, colonel… I was almost starting to believe I was getting the hang of this crazy world you threw me into,” Lincoln said. “But now… now I don’t think I even know what a win looks like anymore.”

The colonel’s expression softened, and he nodded with a weight that spoke volumes of understanding. In that moment, he was no longer a commanding officer; he was a mentor, and a friend.

“So, I hope it’s obvious I wasn’t born looking like this,” Almeida said, waving a hand around his face. He paused a moment, looked down, scratched the side of his face. “That ambush hit us right outside the wire, in an area that all our operations guys had designated as safe. Friendly locals, no attacks in months, you know the drill. Afterwards, they must have spent… well, I don’t even want to guess how much time or money went into the aftermath. But they had dozens of boys and girls out there, picking up debris, taking pictures, analyzing the attack pattern. Somebody wrote a big report and kicked it up the chain. New procedures came back out. Everybody patted themselves on the back for having figured out what went wrong. When I was in recovery, a general came by and sat down next to me, and you know what he told me?”

Lincoln shook his head.

“He said, ‘Mat, I want you to know, what you went through, and what you’re going through… it’s not for nothing. We’ve learned from it, and we’re making sure it’ll never happen to anyone else ever again.’ And you know what I said to him?”

Lincoln shook his head again.

Almeida smiled. “I said, ‘Yes sir. Thank you, sir.’ He was a three-star, after all. But after he left, I had a good chuckle at the idea that people thought they could figure out how to keep soldiers from getting hurt while trying to kill each other.

“You can spend the rest of your life trying to figure out who should have done what, when; what you should have known that you didn’t. And that’s fine, that’s part of the ritual. But even if you find the answers to all that, it’s just a story you tell yourself. A story to help you believe you’ve got some measure of control over everything. It’s a good story, I like it. But it’s still just a story. Truth is, in our world, sometimes things just blow up.”

The old man paused, let his words sink in.

“But people like you and me?” he said a few moments later. “We don’t let that stop us from doing the good we can. Whatever it is, wherever we can find it… Just do the good you can, son.”

I
T WAS TORTURE TO WATCH
, but Lincoln didn’t feel he had the right to avoid it; he stood on the observation deck overlooking one of the
Curry
’s hangars, where Self and his contingent were marching a bound and hooded Prakoso to the ship that would take them back Earthward. There was no reason for them to treat Prakoso like a hostile. After all he’d done for them, they should have been treating him with honor.

Thumper stood next to him, tears in her eyes. On the other side of her stood Wright, impassive. Lincoln had noticed that with her, the more intensely she was feeling something, the less she seemed to express it. Judging from the neutral look on her face, she was probably the most upset he’d ever seen her. Not for Prakoso, he suspected. Likely she was more angry about the Directorate’s power grab.

“That man’s an artist. His work oughta be in a museum,” Thumper said. “And they’re gonna take him and throw him in a hole somewhere.”

“Let’s not forget why we had to track him down in the first place,” Wright said coolly.

“Don’t do that,” Thumper shot back. “Not now.”

“At least on
that
, NID’s within their authorit–”

“I said not now, Amira!”

Wright drew a breath to respond, but clamped her mouth shut instead. Her clenched jaw told Lincoln everything he needed to know about what she’d been about to say.

“Let’s not eat our own here, huh?” Lincoln said. “This is on me.”

Even though he meant it, part of Lincoln’s ego was quietly hoping that one of his teammates would come to his defense, would remind him how much of this was beyond his control, how he’d done the right thing every step of the way. But no one spoke up on his behalf. In the hangar bay below, everyone was loaded up, and the ship was running through its final preflight checks.

“So what now, captain?” Wright asked. “Just packing up, heading home?”

“No, sergeant. Not until the colonel himself brings us in.”

“I don’t know what more we can do,” Thumper said. “NID just stole our only lead.”

“We’ve still got the relay to work with,” said Lincoln.

“There’s not much I can do with it now,” Thumper replied. “I was just helping. Without Prakoso… I… I can’t do this stuff without him, Lincoln.”

He’d never heard her sound so dejected, so unsure of herself before. This wasn’t like other times, when the team had coaxed her into working out a solution to something she thought was impossible. Then, her doubts had always been external, her uncertainty based on whether or not a problem was fundamentally solvable. Now, she seemed to have lost confidence in herself, faith that if there was an answer to be had, she could find it. A thought struck Lincoln then that maybe Prakoso was the first person she’d ever met in her life who could do something she didn’t understand.

“Of course you can,” Wright interjected before Lincoln could answer.

Thumper looked over at her.

“You were doing magic long before he showed up, Thump,” Wright continued, her eyes still on the ship down below. “I’m not going to let you slack off just because your boyfriend’s gone.”

“This is different,” Thumper said. “It’s a whole different world from what I’m used to–”

“That’s enough, sergeant!” Wright barked, snapping her head around to look directly at Thumper. “You were selected for this team, chosen precisely for your expertise and skill set, with the expectation that you would aggressively attack any problem set to the utmost of your ability and beyond. I will not have you questioning the capability of
any
of my teammates, is that clear?”

Thumper actually leaned back at the power of Wright’s voice, and fell into a stunned silence. Down below, the ship carrying Mr Self and Prakoso drifted up from its moorings, flared its engines, and launched from the bay out into open space.

“Is that
clear
, sergeant?” Wright repeated.

“Yes, ma’am,” Thumper answered.

“Now,” Wright continued. “Prakoso’s gone. We lost a resource. That doesn’t change the mission, or your responsibility to it. Deal with it. And get back to work.”

Thumper stood there looking at Wright for a few moments, then blinked at Lincoln. At a loss for words; probably another first for her. Lincoln’s instinct was to say something to lighten the mood, or to soften the edge, but he checked himself. Wright’s intensity wasn’t the way he would have handled the situation, but he certainly wasn’t going to undermine it now. He just waited, kept his face as impassive as possible.

“I guess uh…” Thumper said. She looked back off at the hangar, through the open bay, at the engines of the ship that carried her friend Yayan Prakoso, rapidly shrinking away. “Well. I guess… I’m gonna go scrub through the archive. See if there’s anything we missed.”

She didn’t make eye contact with either of them as she left, but she stood a little straighter, walked with a little more purpose. Lincoln waited until she was gone before he said anything more.

“So. Maybe not the approach I was going to take, but uh… Well done, sergeant.”

Wright nodded once. “Well. I appreciate you not stepping in, sir. It’s a rare officer that knows when to shut up.”

Lincoln cracked a smile. “Careful, sergeant, I’m almost tempted to take that as a compliment.”

“Do, or don’t. I don’t really care, sir.” She said it deadpan, but after a moment the corner of her mouth turned down in a suppressed smile.

“Ready to get back to it?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, turning and heading towards the door. “I’m gonna go find Mikey. Lord knows he’ll use any excuse to take a nap.”

“Roger that. Anything you need from me?”

“Last I checked,” she said as she was on her way out, “that coffee pot was empty.”

L
ATER THAT DAY
, with nothing more immediately pressing to do, Lincoln, Wright, and Mike were sitting in their compartment, playing cards.

“So,” Mike said, out of the blue. “One time, in Hereford, me and a couple of buddies were out on the range–”

Lincoln chuckled at a sudden realization.