War of Alien Aggression 5 Cozen's War (5 page)

He strapped on Mickey Well’s sidearm, the Honma & Voss x-ray cannon she’d carried before a Squidy gunned her down on Moriah. Only 200 made. Only 17 left known to exist. Illegal carry on earth. This gun was her pride and joy. Wide-bore, user-modulated rate of discharge and an energy storage capacity like an intercontinental hopper. It was worth a few years of his salary. It had been a gift from Cozen to her, but when she died, it became his.

She’d helped Cozen. Mickey had aided him in perpetrating the fraud and the lies he’d maintained to start this war. It hadn’t been out of coercion. It hadn’t been for money. She’d believed in this. That woman had raised him after his own parents died in the War of the Americas and she’d said before
she
died that
this
was the most important thing she’d ever done in her life. She said it was more important than her life or Cozen’s or his.

The instant he heard the clank at his hatch, he realized who he wanted it to be.
Where water flows once, it will flow again
, they say. It wasn’t Dana Sellis offering the condemned man a last meal; it was Asa Biko. The Air Group Commander maneuvered his bulk through the open hatch and stepped into Ram’s quarters.

Biko was a big man. He far preferred
Hardway’s
.3 gees of artificial gravity to a whole Earth gee. That fact would keep him out in the black even if the war ended. "Behold the executioner," he said. "I came to give you this."

It was a thermal mask like the redsuit damage control teams wore sometimes over their helmets. It looked like an executioner’s hood for his helmet.

Ram tried to laugh at it, but it wasn’t funny. "70 billion."

"
Someone’s got to do it." Biko chuckled then, probably because his last words were the phrase most often used to encourage crewmen tasked with unpleasant jobs.
 

Harry Cozen said Ram was the only one to lead this mission because even though he didn’t trust
anyone
, he trusted that Ram was a good man and a good man would make sure this terrible deed is done, despite his own distaste for it.
 

"
When the war is over…" Biko said, nodding his head so imperceptibly at Ram’s sidearm that even someone watching from a hidden micro-camera couldn’t discern it. Without any stated context, Ram knew exactly what Biko meant.
 

In the war’s nascent days, they’d vowed that when it was over, they would kill Harry Cozen for what he’d done, for the murder of ten miners he’d blamed on the Squidies and for the deception and manipulation that led Earth into an unnecessary war costing millions of human lives and however many Squidies had to be snuffed out before it was finally over. Biko was letting Ram know that no matter what happened to him on this mission, Harry Cozen's crimes wouldn’t go unpunished.
 

Chapter Seven
 

Tig and Parker put on the new exosuits Chief Horcheese gave them and went where they were told. In the airlock, waiting to cycle through to the already open bay, he shifted his weight from foot to foot trying to get his suit liner to settle right under the new, partially armored suit. At least they got to keep their old helmets. "Redsuits wear red suits," Tig said. "Red. Not black."

"
Makes you wonder," Parker said. She hadn’t hit the button yet to cycle out the pressure so they could open the door. Her gloved hand hovered over it as she turned and looked up at him.
 

He switched to a secure, line-of-sight, IR comms channel. "What are
you
wondering about?"
 

"
What the hell we’re doing here?" she said.
 

"
In the Squidies’ home system?"
 

"
No. Here. You and me. On
this
mission
."
 

Through the airlock’s porthole they could see the XO, Commander Devlin, standing in front of the open bay door wearing one of the same tactical suits that the Chief had given them. Chief Horcheese stood next to him in her burnt-crimson suit with her back to the locks. They were both looking at
Arbitrage
. You couldn’t see much else.

Parker asked again. "
Why us, Tig?"
 

"
We’re the best?"
 

"
Right. They need a couple of cherries on the most important mission of the war." The way her eyebrows went up told Tig she was being sarcastic, but it still took him a second to get it. "And these suits. They’re
tactical
suits." She was right about that. "We’re not here to
fix
anything, Tig."
 

"
Then what the hell are we here for?"
 

She slammed the button and the atmo bled out of the lock with a burst of frozen fog. He followed her out into the open bay. It bothered Parker not knowing. He wondered what she'd say when she noticed the hidden extras built into their suits. Now wasn't the time to show her.

As she stepped up and stood beside the Chief and the XO in the mouth of the open bay, he heard the double beep that let him know she’d killed the private channel.

For a few seconds, they stood there in silence while the glowing rectangle of
Arbitrage’s
open emergency airlock blinked in the side of her curving hull. Devlin said his next words over local comms. "Whatever happens from here," he said, "Be worthy of survival." And then, he ran forward and jumped into the black. It was just like an officer to say something cryptic and leave like that...like what he'd said didn’t require any explanation.

Chief Horcheese said, "
What
are you cherries waiting for? Go! Go!"

Tig knew his limitations. He knew he’d have been safer crouching on the edge, aiming carefully and pushing, but this wasn’t the time for that. With his eyes fixed on
Arbitrage’s
airlock, he ran the three steps forward and flew with Parker and the Chief only a step behind him.

The Chief pushed off the lip of the bay using her artificial legs. She passed them all in flight, of course. She wasn’t afraid to launch herself at terrific speed. Her new limbs and her reinforced spine would take the shock when she stuck the landing. They’d probably hear it up on
Arbitrage's
bridge.

For a little under thirty seconds, the four of them swam the starry black vacuum between the hulls. The lights in the rectangle of the open airlock blinked, shining bright for a second and then, going dark for a second. When the lights were off, the lock looked like a hole in the patch-welded landscape below, like a grave.

Chief Horcheese hit first and was inside the lock, punching in her codes before Devlin, then Tig and Parker landed to the side of it, on the hull. Before the airlock doors closed behind them all and the pressurization cycle began, Tig turned and glanced back at
Hardway
. The carrier stretched out for half a K on either side with the fleet behind her, bristling with guns. Fighters and junks buzzed around her and all the carriers, assembling for the final battle Cozen had briefed them on.
 

Chapter Eight

From the bridge at the top of the attack carrier’s command tower,
Arbitrage’s
armored teardrop of a hull looked like a fat tadpole slipping out from under
Hardway’s
secondary bays. There were no goodbyes. Nobody called out ‘good hunting’ or ‘tally ho’. That ship maneuvered away from
Hardway
quiet as a shadow. "
Arbitrage
is clear," Dana said. Cozen’s eyes didn’t flick once to it as it steamed silently through the great hulls and swarming sorties behind them and made for the rear of the invasion fleet.
 

"Message
from Admiral Konig. One word: 'Calico'."
 

"
Our reply is 'Topcoat', Mr. Bergano." Bergano nodded at his console behind Cozen and sent the confirmation.
 

Harry Cozen sat in that command chair like it was a throne. His confidence didn’t appear shaken in the slightest, not even during his last communication with the commanders aboard
Araby
and
Point Neuf
, when the tortured recording of Chief Jericho Bilt spoke over him like an insolent ghost, whispering on their channel, "
The war of alien aggression is a lie.
"
 

The NAV console was set to port of the command chair and from Dana’s battlestation there she had a good view of Cozen without appearing to watch him. He didn’t flinch or twinge when the prisoner of war read the statement the Squidies had no doubt written for him. "
We offered a treaty, but Harry Cozen chose war
." It was all an alien lie, Dana told herself. It had to be.
 

Cozen wasn’t troubled with the same questions some of the crew had burdened themselves with since the alien propaganda broadcasts started. He knew the truth. He sat up straight up in that chair with his eyes on the projections of the invasion fleet and the alien ships stretched out along 100 million miles of battlefront.

The Staas Guards at the main hatches and the lift didn’t have any questions. Dana felt like a traitor even entertaining what she’d heard as anything but propaganda. She’d been there that day on Moriah, too. They’d attacked first.
The Squidies had attacked them and they’d defended themselves.
No. It wasn’t possible it was all a lie. She was there with Ram and Biko and Cozen when it happened. Asa Biko was right here, in front of her at the Air Traffic console, managing the junks and fighters of the Air Group. He knew the truth. When that alien propaganda played, Biko didn’t question what he knew. Dana told herself she shouldn't either.
 

"
99th and 38th, you have clearance on request. Good hunting." Biko felt her staring and looked up from the AT console then. "That’s the whole lot," he said to her. "The barn is empty. Not a craft in the bays besides the longboats."
 

Harry Cozen leaned forward then. He clapped his hands once, loudly, and rubbed his palms together vigorously before he separated them. "Mr. Bergano, broadcast the signal to all ships in the open. "Geronimo. And good luck." Cozen thumbed the squack, the ship’s internal comms, and spoke into every ear. "This battle we fight today is the last and most important battle of the war. It is only because of your innumerable sacrifices that we are here to fight it the enemy's home system instead of our own. We paid for the victories that brought us here with blood. Let us not waste this opportunity that has been bought with so dear a currency. Humanity expects that each and every one of you will do your duty. As do I."

It seemed like Harry Cozen was done, and Bergano said, "Battle stations, battle stations. All hands to battle stations. Full suits and helmets are the order of the day. This ship will vent atmo in five minutes. That is all."

Biko had tried to hide it, but Dana had seen the look on his face as Cozen had delivered Admiral Nelson’s borrowed words. It was disgust she saw there. Biko tried to veil it and the roundness of his face helped hide the movements of the smaller facial muscles, but she still saw the expression there like he'd tasted something he didn't like. "Lt. Commander Sellis." She looked up, and Cozen’s gaze drilled her between the eyes like a spotlight. The pressure of it was palpable.

"
What can I do for you, Mr. Cozen?"
 

"
Bring this ship about and fall in between SCS
Araby
and
Pont Neuf
as they pass us. The Privateer carriers will steam into the mother of all battles together."
 

*****

Ram Devlin had been aboard
Arbitrage
several times during the planning of what had only been referred to as ‘the mission’. He was most certainly cleared to know more about it than anyone he passed on his way up the decks to that paranoid ship’s bridge, but they still never left him alone in its passageways for even one moment.

Lt. Murchison was a full head taller than Ram. The ship’s second officer shook the deck behind him as Ram lead just to prove he knew the way through the smooth, composite lined passageways.

As he stepped out of the lift and set foot on
Arbitrage’s
bridge, Matilda Witt called out to him. "Mr. Devlin!" She stood at the center of the bridge in front of the command chair. Although Witt was currently on her feet, it was clear immediately that she’d displaced Commander Pai. He stood over at the Ops console, only glancing up as Ram entered with Lt. Murchison lurking behind him. "I’m glad to see you, Mr. Devlin. And I must apologize for the hospitality around here. Harry’s crew is phenomenal at keeping secrets. Not so good with other things. On my ship, on
Taipan,
I would have had a drink in your hand by now."