The Swarm (23 page)

It was true. There was a gnawing ache in his stomach—not a stitch in his side or the discomfort of a stretched muscle, but the throbbing annoyance of his old wound. Like someone prodding him with a sharp stick. It wasn't enough to make him buckle over, and he could mostly ignore it if he focused his mind intently on a task. But it was there.

“You've performed well here at WAMRED,” said the doctor. “So no one paid much attention to your medical file. Or maybe you knew someone who was willing to overlook it. Either way, I can't overlook it now.” He tapped the wall, and the charts disappeared.

“Were you ordered to mark me for light duty?” Mazer asked.

The doctor looked affronted. “Absolutely not. I take offense at such a suggestion.”

Mazer believed him. The man couldn't be that good of an actor. “How long have you been here at WAMRED?” Mazer asked. “I've never seen you before.”

“I don't see how that makes any difference.”

“It might.”

The doctor folded his arms, growing impatient. “I arrived on the shuttle this morning.”

“So I'm one of your first patients.”

“You
are
my first patient. What are you suggesting, Captain?”

“Who scheduled my physical? I had one only five months ago. I thought these were annual checkups.”

“They are. Normally. But they can be requested if a soldier's health or physical stamina is in question.”

“So someone made a special request in my case?”

“I have no idea. I arrived, they gave me a schedule, you were first. I don't set the appointments.”

“Interesting. On average, how many soldiers do you recommend for light duty?”

“This is beginning to feel like an interrogation,” the doctor said. “We're through here.”

The doctor moved for the door, but Mazer was faster. He stepped between the doctor and the exit.

“Out of my way, Captain, or I will call in the officer.”

“Last question,” Mazer said, “because I think you're being played here.”

The doctor paused, folded his arms again, and frowned, waiting.

Mazer said, “Would you agree that other doctors within the IF are too lax when it comes to testing soldiers' physical readiness?”

The doctor sighed. “If you're asking me if I'm harder on soldiers than other doctors, Captain, the answer is, I am accurate, where other doctors are not. I am thorough. They are not. There should be no leniency in soldier readiness. Period. Any soldier who has ever sustained a life-threatening wound should be placed on light duty. That experience mars him. He is far more likely to hesitate, hold back, or buckle in the heat of battle. His fear of repeating his previous experience heightens his anxiety and diminishes his rational thinking. Physical wounds create irreparable mental wounds. I have written a paper on the subject.”

“Was it published?”

“Several times.”

“Did you present scientific evidence for this theory?”

“It isn't a theory. It is fact. I've been doing this for a long time, Captain. I've seen it with my own eyes.”

“So you have anecdotal evidence,” Mazer said. “Not statistical evidence. Your conclusions are based solely on your personal interactions with a limited number of patients who meet specific criteria. Because I could provide plenty of anecdotal evidence to counter that position. Every major engagement in the history of warfare probably has plenty of examples.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes. “I do not have to justify my conclusions to you, Captain. Nor did I come here to debate soldier psychology.”

“No, you came here to mark me for light duty,” said Mazer. “And you made that decision the instant you saw my history. Putting me on the treadmill and through the tests was just perfunctory.”

“Get out of my way, Captain.”

Mazer opened the door, and the doctor launched out into the hall, where Nardelli was waiting. The doctor spun, launched again, and was gone.

Nardelli smiled sardonically at Mazer. “Good news, Rackham. I've just received orders to escort you to the dock. Your court-martial on Luna awaits.”

Interesting. As soon as they build a case against me, they get right to it.

Mazer showered, changed into his uniform, packed his few belongings into a rucksack, and then followed Nardelli down the corridor. When they were alone, Nardelli stopped and faced him. “Do you have all your belongings in your rucksack there, Rackham? Every last one?” He took the earpiece out of his ear and rolled it between his fingers, giving Mazer an icy smile.

Mazer sighed inside. It was obvious that Nardelli was trying to rile him. Vaganov had probably ordered him to do so. Get him to take a swing at you, Vaganov might have said. Let's add assaulting an officer to his growing list of charges.

It was a ridiculously stupid approach, because only an idiot would fall for it. And it gave Mazer pause. Why was Vaganov so eager to discredit him? Did Vaganov's crimes go deeper than Mazer suspected?

Whatever the reason, Mazer wasn't playing.

“You can have my earpiece,” said Mazer. “I don't need it anymore.”

Nardelli smirked. “You're not supposed to talk, Rackham.”

“I'm making an exception for you,” said Mazer. “Consider it a gift, one soldier to another.”

Nardelli gripped his riot rod. “You're not a soldier, Rackham. You're a traitor.”

Mazer felt a little sad for the man. “I'm going to give you some unsolicited parting advice, Nardelli. Whatever Vaganov promised you, it's not worth it. His interests are terribly misplaced, and when he goes down, he's going to take you and everyone else he's enlisted to do his dirty work with him. I'm betting you already have a few strikes on your record. That's why Vaganov noticed you and made you his battering ram. But that's a doomed road, my friend. I'm not your enemy. The Formics are, and we're going to need every capable soldier when they get here. You do your family or Earth no good behind bars.”

Nardelli laughed. “You're the one being court-martialed, Rackham, not me.”

“That can change rather quickly,” said Mazer.

Nardelli's expression hardened. “You threatening me, traitor?”

“I'm asking you to be sensible for the good of the human race. You obviously want to pick a fight. But I'm not going to take the bait. So let's just part before one of us does something he'll regret.”

Nardelli grabbed Mazer by the arm and pulled him down a side corridor. “Yeah, well, my only regret is that I didn't do this a long time ago.”

The space station's main cargo hold was at the end of the corridor. Nardelli dragged Mazer in, pushed him to the side, and began rolling up his sleeves. Mazer anchored himself to the floor and calmly took in his surroundings. The room was massive, at least thirty meters high, with an open space in the middle for cargo lifts to move freight around. The walls on the left and right were stacked floor to ceiling with storage bins, each bin roughly two meters cubed. The long rows and tall stacks of bins made the walls look like giant square honeycombs. Mazer stood by an empty bin on the floor level. The bins had no fronts, and only a few of them were empty. Most contained metal cargo cubes that fit snugly into each bin. Food, medical supplies, fresh water, spare parts, equipment. A short metal bar extended halfway across the front of each bin, holding each cargo cube in place. The bar was attached to the side of the bin, and when the bar was lifted, the cube was free to be extracted.

Mazer experimentally tried turning the bar nearest him and found it easy to rotate. A round button was on the side of the bin beneath the bar. Mazer pushed it, and as he had expected, the back wall of the bin slowly came outward. Had there been a cube inside, the advancing wall, and the unseen mechanism behind, would have pushed the cube free.

Nardelli assumed a fighting stance, fists up, jaw set.

“Do you really want to do this, Nardelli? This is schoolyard bully behavior. You should have outgrown this a long time ago.”

Nardelli smiled. “I'm going to enjoy this.”

Mazer put his hands behind his back, looking relaxed. “I'm special forces, Nardelli. They trained me how to crush a man's windpipe. It's not difficult. Normally the larynx is quite elastic. But out here in space, the thyroid cartilage and cricoid cartilage ossify. They get brittle and break easily. One hit is all it takes. All those joints and cords and sinew and cartilage will rip and pop and shatter. Pain, Nardelli. And blood. Even before it kills you, you want to die.”

Nardelli raised his fists a little higher, protecting his neck. He didn't charge.

Mazer stepped to his right and turned the lever upward, freeing the cargo cube inside; then he pushed the button and continued to his right, keeping his eyes on Nardelli. The mechanism in the back came to life and pushed the cargo cube outward. Weightless, it drifted free of the bin and continued toward the bins on the opposite side.

Nardelli easily sidestepped it, letting it pass, hands still up.

“Or there's a carotid artery on either side of your neck,” said Mazer. “Specifically your carotid sinus. I hit that and the baroreceptor cells get all wonky and confused and tell your brain to slow down your heart to drop your blood pressure. It happens fast. You black out. I then drive my boot into your crotch while you're asleep. If you wake up again, you'll wish you hadn't. The pain isn't pretty.”

“You're trying to stall me,” Nardelli said. “You're half my size. I can break you easy.”

Mazer kept moving to his right. “A smaller size gives me the advantage, Nardelli. You're a big, easy, lumbering target. More mass in zero G means you need more energy to move, and when you do it's harder for you to maneuver. You don't need a PhD in physics to know that.”

Mazer released another cube and kept moving to his right. Nardelli looked like he would charge but then hesitated. The second cube passed him.

“What were Colonel Vaganov's instructions to you specifically?” Mazer asked. “To get me worked up into a frenzy? To agitate me enough so you could bust me on assault charges?”

Nardelli said nothing.

“Not a very smart plan,” Mazer asked. “Fleet attorneys aren't stupid. They'll look at your record, and they'll look at mine, and who do think they'll believe, Nardelli? You?”

Nardelli said nothing.

“Subtlety is not your strength,” said Mazer. “You laid it on a little too thick. But I have to hand it to you. There were a few times when I almost gave in and broke your arms.”

“So come try, Rackham.”

“And how convenient that all the workers in the cargo hold are absent at just the right moment. Did Vaganov give them instructions, too?”

Nardelli said nothing.

“What you're doing here is career suicide, Nardelli,” Mazer said. He kept moving to his right. He pushed another lever up, hit the button. A cargo cube scooted outward.

“Colonel Vaganov can't give you illegal orders,” Mazer said. “Come with me to Luna. Talk to an attorney. You have a pretty good defense. He's a colonel. They train us to obey colonels. He put you in a difficult situation. Of course, Vaganov's probably too smart to have spoken to you directly. Your orders probably came from one of his officers. Which one was it?”

Mazer pushed up another lock bar and hit the button. The mechanism in the back whined as it turned on, and the cargo cube eased out of the bin.

Nardelli charged.

Mazer launched upward, his boot magnets already turned off, easily avoiding Nardelli's reach. Nardelli grabbed at air as Mazer tucked into a ball and got his feet pointing in the opposite direction. He landed lightly on the ceiling, but he launched again immediately, heading toward the bins on the opposite wall. He caught himself on the lip of a bin halfway between the floor and ceiling. He pulled up the lock bar, hit the button. The cargo cube drifted out, floating across the room.

Nardelli looked up at him. “That's how you fight, Rackham? Running away?”

Mazer moved to his right, pulled down another bar, hit another button. Another cargo cube drifted out.

Nardelli drew his riot rod, then launched upward directly at Mazer.

The man wasn't well trained in zero G combat, Mazer noted. He was launching all wrong. His center of mass was off, his legs weren't set, and he clearly had no plan for stopping himself other than his intended collision with Mazer.

Not smart.

Mazer moved a bar and hit a button, and Nardelli, with no way of changing his course, collided with the cargo cube as it was pushed out of the bin and into Nardelli's trajectory. There was a thud and a grunt of pain, and Mazer launched away. He released two more cubes as Nardelli drifted aimlessly, having ricocheted off the cube, arms flailing.

This is how it was in the Formic scout ship during the firefight, Mazer thought. Big chunks of debris. Obstacles obstructing our view and our flight. The Formics maneuvered around them easily, experienced in zero G, but we weren't ready for it. We hadn't trained our minds to think in a three-dimensional space. A huge oversight. That needs to be fixed.

Mazer landed on the lip of one of the bins near the ceiling and watched Nardelli struggle. There were nine cubes drifting lazily through the room at various heights, bumping into each other and forming a cluster of obstructions. Nardelli was having a hard time maneuvering around them. He jumped and landed on one, got his footing, and launched to another. The top of his head was bleeding, and he was seething now, desperate to get to Mazer. But he was floundering too; all of his movements were uncertain and awkward, and it frustrated him all the more. He leaped to another cube, but this one must have been empty because it began to rotate when he hit it at the angle he did.

Nardelli panicked, struggling to keep his orientation with the floor. As the cube rotated one way, Nardelli countered by crawling the other way, trying to stay on what he perceived as the top of the crate, as if he feared he would fall off the cube to the floor. No Formic soldier would make such an obvious mistake.