Foundations
“Evil doesn’t explain itself. It doesn’t need to.”
(Part 19 of “The Misfits” series)
When the Letters Offensive began, it was the most widespread fighting outside the war’s usual battle lines in a generation. Make no mistake, the Trasp made the first strike, deploying fast-attack battle groups deep into the Alphas and Betas, hitting suspected military targets and civilian outposts alike. But the Etterans were not taken completely by surprise. They’d known a move was coming and were prepared to react accordingly. Their Eighth, Fourth, and Seventh fleets were quick to respond, engaging both the Trasp aggressors and any perceived threats, including, in three extremely bloody instances, self-defense forces of the Letters Select Service that were deployed to respond to the incursion of both combatant fleets. Countless civilian vessels were sent scrambling for safety. Many more became casualties in this latest bloody outburst in the deadliest conflict in the history of humanity.
It was a perilous time to be in space.
That was just where the Yankee-Chaos was, drifting in a dark spot on the edge of the Deltas, twelve light years from the closest star—a dim red dwarf. Maícon had picked about as decent a place to stop and take stock of the situation as could be expected under the circumstances. But the circumstances were fluid. Safety was destined to be relative in the chaos of the first few weeks of the offensive, they all knew. But they also knew space was not the place to be—reflecting light in that dark black sea while three powerful military fleets vied for control, shooting before asking questions was even a consideration. And the Yankee-Chaos, regardless of what the spoofed transponder said, looked exactly like a military transport vessel, because that’s what she once was.
Carolina had been quiet since their latest uncomfortably narrow escape. She was seated on the bridge alone for much of that first jump out of Alpha-Petros. Even Transom was giving her space. But Fields encroached when the lack of communication concerned him enough to press the issue with the Captain.
“We need to get her down somewhere,” Fieldstone advised her. “Everyone will be shooting at everybody and it’s only a matter of time until we bump into somebody.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer to just keep jumping farther from the lines?” she asked Fieldstone.
“Safer? Maybe,” Fields told her.
He floated beside her for a moment, trying to read her face and body language for the slightest hint of an invitation to sit and discuss. He didn’t get it.
“So, however we do it, Transom and I are going to get the information we need from Hernan,” Fields told her, floating beside the Captain’s chair. “If we jump four weeks out, that’s four weeks away from anything useful being actionable for anyone. I guess the question is how likely is it that Hernan knows anything that could stall the fighting.”
“What do you think?”
“Damned if I know,” Fields answered. “But look, space is big, even with Etterus and those Trasp bastards buzzing around half the Letters. We have to be able to find somewhere to lie low nearby.”
“Right,” Carolina said. “Send in Ren and Sōsh when you see them. They know the Letters better than any of us.”
“Will do.”
“And, Fieldstone,” Carolina added. “I probably don’t need to say this, but Hernan …”
She paused.
“What about him?”
“I don’t know. It’s just … I have a feeling he might be the most important piece in this whole puzzle.”
“And you don’t want Transom ruining our chances of getting what we need out of him by cutting off his fingers or something like that before Sebastian even starts asking questions?”
Carolina shrugged, grinning. “Something like that. You’re already starting to read my mind.”
“It’s not mind reading, Captain. The obvious things are obvious. Don’t worry. The objective is the thing. Transom knows that. I’ll send the others right up.”
“And Prime as well, please. I’m sure he’ll have some useful thoughts.”
Nobody knew the Deltas better than Burch, but both Sōsh and Ren agreed that span of systems was the best bet. There was so little out there; neither the Trasp nor the Etterans were likely to be heavily patrolling the area. Ren reckoned the most obscure spot she could think to touch down was a planet in the Delta-Fina system the locals called 2-Rock, a primordial, volcanically active planet that was still stable enough to land the Y-C for a spell. It was also far enough from the small cylinder group circling Fina proper that Maícon could bring them in totally undetected. Then, it would just be a question of finding the right sort of canyon, cavern system, or rock outcropping to conceal the Yankee-Chaos from view.
The Maícon clone hadn’t picked up any chatter in the Deltas. But, as Transom was quick to point out, chatter only meant there was someone left to do the chattering, and it didn’t seem that the Trasp offensive was surgical in nature. All signs were pointing to overwhelming destructive force with little regard for human life or colonial infrastructure. The opening hours had been monstrous.
Carolina was sensitive to the fact that she was an outsider, both emotionally and in standing. Ren and Sōsh were both decidedly subdued. These places known to be getting hit—some of them were close to home. And for the two Etteran exiles, an offensive on this scale meant that their people would be called to repel it with equal ferocity. To an Athosian, very little of it made sense. But every time she felt tempted to ask someone for clarity, it always seemed the wrong moment or too difficult a question to pose.
This, though? It seemed over the line. Even for the Trasp.
She did have someone she could ask. Akop Hernan had been semi-conscious. Ren had been keeping him mostly sedated. It was getting time for answers, though. They just needed a strategy. Carolina broached the topic with the three most persuasive crew members at dinner. Privately, the Maícons had voiced concern to Carolina about letting Transom and Fields off the leash to interrogate him in their way. “Transom’s way,” had almost become a byword for anything that was wild, threatening, and morally questionable yet still decidedly effective.
“Like about everything else we do,” Ren quipped sardonically as they were discussing the matter. “Good thing I took an oath; otherwise, I’d be tempted to go back there with a laser torch after these past couple days.”
“Easy doctor,” Fieldstone said. “Our people aren’t the ones lighting up the Alphas.”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “Give it a couple hours, Fields.”
Carolina sighed. “All that effort to acquire him,” she said. “And we did it too late.”
“Too late for what?” Transom asked, shaking his head. “Would you eat, by the way? Last two meals I’ve seen you come down here and pick away at a pasty doing more damage to the wrapper than the food itself. I don’t want to have to tell you to eat.”
She looked over at him, grimacing. “I had thought … I don’t know. Maybe I was hoping if we got to Hernan in time, maybe we could have prevented all this.”
“Get your head right, Captain,” Transom said. “Maybe we prevent tomorrow or the next day or the next day. Maybe we prevent nothing. Doesn’t matter. We do our work. Even keel.”
“Correct,” Fields said. “We need to get on with our job regardless of the current chaos.”
“Hernan?” Carolina stated.
“That’s what the last eight months of my life have been about—chasing that bastard down,” Fieldstone said. “I’d like to have a crack at him first, Captain.”
“I’m sure you would,” Ren said. “I don’t mean to belittle your efforts or anything, Fields. I respect what you and Draya went through to get him here. But I do know a thing or two about human psychology, even if it’s not specifically interrogation or psyops or whatever else. I think it would pay to be strategic with him.”
“Respectfully, doctor—” Fields began.
Transom put up his hand. “Excuse me, Fields.”
Fieldstone looked over at Transom, shrugging and then gesturing for Sebastian to speak.
“Respectfully, doctor,” Transom said. “I am open to putting the neuroband on him and then cracking his knees in a vise. But if you genuinely have a better idea that will get us the info we need without all that effort and carrying on, I’m fine with that too. And if both those methods fail, I do know another way.”
Fieldstone glanced over at Transom side-eyed, some unspoken acknowledgement between them.
“Well that’s ominous enough,” Ren said, shaking her head. “I swear, sometimes it’s like shipping with the Angel of Death.”
“She’s clever, and you should listen to her,” Draya interjected. “I think I know what she’s thinking.”
Ren looked over at Draya, puzzled. She’d hardly shared a word with Fieldstone’s new companion since they’d left Alpha-Petros.
“Okay, Dr. Ren, correct me if I’m wrong, but Chief Hernan doesn’t really know what’s happened? Doesn’t know where he is exactly, how he got here, anything really?”
“More or less.”
“So the last thing he remembers, we can assume, is his own security chief going ballistic in the elevator on Alpha-Petros?”
“Exactly,” Ren said. “That’s what I was trying to say. He doesn’t know anything. He’s totally disoriented.”
“So?” Fieldstone asked.
“So, why don’t we use that to our advantage?” Ren asked. “There must be some good way, rather than you two each taking a run at him, getting his guard up. Torture.”
Carolina looked over skeptically. “It’s a thought,” she said. “We also have to remember who we think this guy is. If we’re right, this is the head of the Etteran branch of the conspiracy. We might have to break his kneecaps—or whatever more ominous thing Sebastian has in mind that we probably don’t want to know about.”
Transom shrugged. “As I said, I can be patient. I say we park this bucket, and you all can take all the time you’d like. If you get what we need, fine. If not, I’ll spend that time sharpening my knife. One way or another, the information in that man’s head is coming out of it.”
“Gawd,” Ren said. “Transom! The head?”
Sōsh started laughing—a wheezing laugh from his chest that sounded almost as much a cough as a laugh.
Carolina shook her head.
“Just when I think I’ve gotten used to him, he finds a new level.” Ren stated.
Draya looked over at Sebastian and then toward Carolina, wide-eyed. “Where have you guys been all my life? I swear, I’ve missed out on all the fun.”
“Careful what you wish for, babe,” Fieldstone said. “I’m not sure you fully understand what Sebastian’s talking about.”
“No?” Draya asked.
“He’s not talking about using the neuroband,” Sōsh said.
“Well,” Carolina replied. “Plenty to think about. Ren, I’ll let you know shortly. I’d like to discuss it with Prime first. Then we’ll see.”
Carolina was quiet and withdrawn that afternoon. She oversaw their quick survey and concealment on 2-Rock. Maícon picked out a sizeable rock outcropping about midway up a deep canyon formed of an enormous dormant volcanic lava flow. Burch stocked a camo-sheet that was just the right size, and from orbit, would blend well enough into the rock that nearly any survey short of a close drone flyby would keep the Yankee-Chaos invisible to even military-grade surveying tools. The Maícons, Sōsh, and the Etterans were satisfied they were safe there for the time being. So they turned their attention toward Hernan.
By the time the ship was settled in, Carolina’s mind was settled as well.
She called for Ren to discuss medicating the former Etteran Deputy War Chief to the best possible mood and chance at forthrightness; then, when the doctor called to tell her he was in the right state of mind, she went down to see Akop Hernan herself.
She’d been watching him on the med-bay’s cameras since they’d picked him up on Alpha-Petros. She found it strange to see him there so helpless—a man who once wielded nearly the full power of the Etteran Guild—strapped to her table, a prisoner, his fate in her hands. She knew at least two of his own people who were more than willing to make that fate an ugly one. She had a few questions, though, before she was willing to sanction that outcome.
Her first impression, seeing him there on the table, was that he was old. An old man. If he was a villain, he didn’t look it at first glance; but, she’d learned, such things weren’t always easy to measure by appearances.
He noticed her right away when she peeked in from the doorway, turning to meet eyes with her and smiling.
“Hello, my dear,” he said. “If you’re not the loveliest thing these old eyes have spied in a decade, I don’t know what is.”
Carolina smiled back at him. She couldn’t see anything there in his face beyond sincerity, a grandfatherly innocence and courtesy. Not exactly what she was expecting.
“You look familiar,” he said. “You’re not who I was expecting, but sometimes this universe surprises, doesn’t it? To the bad and the good.”
He paused, gauging Carolina’s reaction.
“Which one are you, do you reckon?” Hernan asked.
“What? Good or bad?” Carolina asked.
“Exactly.”
Carolina stepped closer to the table, considering the question as she sat on Ren’s stool beside Hernan’s bedside.
“That’s a difficult question.”
“Maybe the most difficult question,” Hernan said, nodding. “Could we start with something easier maybe. Who are you? Where are we? Why am I here?”
“We’re somewhere safe,” Carolina answered. “That’s all I’m prepared to say right now.”
“You’re not Trasp? And that dour doctor who’s been drugging me into oblivion, I don’t think she was Trasp either. I expect you’ll be turning me over to the Trasp? You’re mercenaries of some sort?”
“I’m not sure we’ve decided anything just yet. But you’re correct. We aren’t Trasp.”
“Evasive, yet marginally informative. You’ve got my curiosity up, I have to say. In my business—and I’m presuming you know the nature of my business—we’d call this turn of events ‘out of paradigm.’ Which is a fancy way of saying totally unexpected.”
He cast a penetrating look her way and smiled, not performatively but deeply, genuinely. Akop Hernan shook his head.
“You remind me of someone, you know. I was trying to place it. When you get old like me, you have a lot of memories. They fade and blend together. But you bear a striking resemblance to somebody I knew once—a very formidable woman.”
“Oh?”
“Miranna.” He sighed. “Dreeson-Hall, I think, was the surname she was using at the time. She was the Athosian ambassador to Etterus, maybe about fifteen years older than I appraise you to be, young lady. Spitting image. Miranna. If you knew her, you’d take it as a compliment.”
“I will.”
“You have a kind heart. I can tell. Gentle. Not yet corrupted. The doctor, she’s similar but jaded. I can tell this bothers her, and I suppose it bothers you a little too, but I’m guessing you see a greater good here, and I’m just now realizing you must have drugged me. These are thoughts I normally wouldn’t be speaking aloud, even to a lovely young lady such as yourself. Internal monologue. So, you have me doubly at a disadvantage.”
“Doubly?”
“Yes. I can tell you know me, because you came to talk to me. I don’t even know your name. What can I call you?”
“Call me Vella.”
“Vella?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not your name, though. You’re a terrible liar, dear. Take it from someone who used to teach espionage, no one named Vella would genuinely introduce herself by saying ‘Call me Vella.’ A name encompasses your entire identity. It’s so much more than what you’re called. So I know immediately, that’s an alias.”
He looked down at the restraints, the table, pleading with his eyes. “I’m at a total loss here, my dear, who are you?”
“I’m Carly.”
“Ha! So you are. Carly. Beautiful Carly. I’m Akop. Akop Hernan. In my younger years, before command—and come to think of it even after—people who knew me called me Bulldog.”
“Bulldog?”
“I was quite a fighter once. I know it’s hard to imagine, looking at this old body. I was a fighter. Now, I guess, I’m just an old bulldog.”
The two of them shared a long laugh.
Outside, in the atrium, watching on the floatscreen, Fieldstone shook his head.
“Unbelievable! He’s working her.”
Fields was indignant, looking over at Transom as though to ask how long he was going to allow it to continue.
“He’s eighty, strapped to a table, drugged half to hell and he’s working her, Sebastian!”
Transom shook his head. “Let it play.”
“Guy was the goddamned spy chief of all Etterus, and she’s in there laughing with him.”
“Relax, Fieldstone. What do we lose if she embarrasses herself?” Transom said, tapping the knife at his pantleg. “You don’t know her yet.”
“He’s an old dog all right,” Sōsh said, shaking his head, looking up the screen. “You Etterans.”
Carolina did have her guard up, but she was genuinely warming to the old man. She could see he did have a charm still. She couldn’t help but think of the woman Carolina herself had reminded him of—Miranna. Grandmother. Barnard’s mother. Ambassador to Etterus. Those years. Akop’s bulldog charm. All the things she’d never know about her parents’ and grandparents’ lives.
“Tell me, Carly,” Hernan said, breaking the smile with a sober look. “Would you tell me one more thing, please. My men? I was betrayed by one of them on Petros, as I’m sure you know. I have no idea how your people got to him, but I suppose if I did, I wouldn’t be here. I’d accounted him a loyal man.”
He could tell by the look on her face.
“Dead? All of them?”
“Our people didn’t kill them,” she said. “It’s unlikely they got out of Petros before the Trasp arrived, though.”
“Well, then you did kill them, I’m afraid, Carly,” Hernan sighed. “Is he here with you, the Major? I would like the opportunity to look that traitor in the eyes.”
Carolina shook her head. “I’m not going to answer that question, Bulldog. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. These decisions are part of command. You made these calls. I can see that now. Own what’s yours. The doubt is unbecoming a leader. The question at the outset—are you good or bad. That was where I had you.”
Carolina suddenly saw the seriousness in his eyes. It wasn’t malice nor even the same type of dark businesslike coldness that Sebastian often projected. She could tell this was a different type of man. She recognized him easily now.
“Anyway, Carly. I have a lot of questions.”
“Answer one for me first, Bulldog.”
He shrugged.
“What are you doing out in the Letters?”
He looked at her probingly, taking a long, deep breath.
“You don’t know what the hell is going on here, do you?” he responded finally. “You’re asking me personally, but you’re also not. You’re very young. I can tell you’re asking about me, but you don’t know the context, which is very interesting. You don’t understand why Etterus is in the Letters, which also means you don’t know why the enemy is here as well. I thought before by the way you spoke you weren’t from here, but the more you speak, the more I’m certain you’re Athosian or maybe from Hellenia. I’d bet my life on one of those two. Is this a vendetta? Something personal, I wonder?”
Akop Hernan shook his head, puzzling out his situation, trying to drill further down on his interrogator. The very fact that she allowed it to continue told him something new with each passing second.
“Where should I begin, Carly? Would you like a history lesson? I promise it will be quite useful information for an outsider to know—all the stuff the history files wouldn’t teach you in your classes. You’re a scientist, I’d wager. That’s how you make sense of things. I can explain war to you like physics—gasses under pressure, areas of high and low concentration, immutable laws of human forces, equal and opposite reactions.”
“Please,” Carolina said, gesturing for him to continue.
“I’m going to assume you’re Athosian for our purposes, which means you know next to nothing about the Letters and very little about the war. To you, it’s distant, alien, a bit like trying to explain the rain to someone who’s lived their whole life on a cylinder. It is as much a force of nature as the weather and macroeconomics.
“Just nod if this is true, Carly, but I’m guessing you wonder why it is the Trasp wander about the Letters unchecked?”
“I asked about you, though,” Carolina replied.
“Yes, we Etterans do it too. That’s part of your question?”
Carolina nodded subtly.
“It’s complicated, my dear, but you have to remember that the Letters wasn’t what it is today when the war began. They weren’t even a loose confederation. In terms of volume, the Letters as we think of the confederation of systems today is a territory roughly fifteen times larger than the Trasp Protectorate and the Etteran Guild combined, and at the start of the war, they had maybe a twentieth the population of either western power. In physics, you could see the area of high concentration diffusing into the area of low concentration. Some of the pressure of the direct conflict between the two powers was destined to leak into those territories.
“For the Lettered Systems, strategically speaking, it would have been foolish to pick a side, because either way, they were destined to lose. Choose a side and you might help the winner. At best, you’re ensuring a major power taking over both territories right on your doorstep. Choose the losing side, and, well, the consequences of that outcome are obvious.
“So you, as a civilian, might wonder why the Letters as an entity tolerated and continues to tolerate these incursions. The answer is simple. Engaging either power directly would force them to defend an area that’s too big to possibly defend, and the cost of trying is direct conflict, which the Letters would inevitably lose to either power.”
“I’m not so sure that’s true.”
“Correct, Carly, but you’re missing a word.”
“Missing a word?”
“Yes. It might not be true anymore. Anymore. Seventy years ago it was definitely true. Now? Now, the Letters, population-wise isn’t nearly as dense as the Guild or the Protectorate, but in aggregate, in terms of the military-aged fighters they could conscript and the economic engine, the number of bots and ships and drones and munitions they could pay to manufacture—after sixty years of our two powers bashing our heads against one another, the Letters could pick the winner tomorrow, but they won’t.
“This latest flare-up of violence into their territory, it’s the last. It’s been building for thirty years. Mathematically inevitable almost.
“For the most part, they’ll let us fight it out on their territory and write off their losses as the cost of staying out of the war. And in another decade, when the population balance is even further skewed, if they’re smart, they’ll reach across both our flanks to you—to Athos—and make subject states of us both.
“Long term and short term, that’s the smart play. They don’t get sucked into the war; they don’t make a direct enemy on their border, and they don’t have to worry about being subjugated in the future by either of the two diminishing powers who once loomed over their territory.
“It may take another twenty years, Carly, but this storm is winding down and will inevitably end, and both Etterus and the Trasp Protectorate will have blown themselves out.”
“That doesn’t answer the question with respect to yourself, Chief Hernan.”
“I have sixteen grandchildren, my dear. If the Trasp were to win the war, how many grandchildren my grandchildren have would be determined by the good graces of my enemies, not a notoriously merciful bunch, the Trasp. Personally, and that’s what this is for me—a personal calculation—I am about as retired as a man like me can be. But I would rather bet on the Letters and Athos for a tolerable future for Etterus than ever allowing the Protectorate to gain the upper hand on us.”
“You’ve accepted you can’t win the war?”
“Not this war, my dear. Winning, whatever that is, was never on the table.”
“Specifically, though, what were you doing out there? I know you were quite active these past few months.”
“Yes, I suppose you’d have had someone watching me closely to pick me up like that. Somebody very good to evade my security. Somebody trained.”
He looked off toward the wall, seemingly deep in thought.
“The Trasp offensive was already in motion. You also said we were safe, Carly, didn’t you? It’s likely you wouldn’t have said that if this weren’t the major offensive we’d been expecting. So, then, it’s here.
“I have been gathering and analyzing counterintelligence for the Etteran High Command. I’ve been out here for decades watching, taking the pulse of things. Last year, I saw enough to send word back to Etterus that I thought action was imminent. I was out here and had command experience, so they trusted me to coordinate. They called me out of retirement to help prepare counter-maneuvers.
“Does that clarify a little, Carly?”
“Yes,” Carolina said. “Thank you for the history lesson. It was very clear.”
“And decidedly unbiased for a man in my position, I have to say.”
Carolina smiled.
“Thus ends the cordial portion of the conversation, if my instincts serve me. And they usually do,” Hernan said. “Would you like to tell me who you really are and what you really want from me, miss? You went to a lot of trouble to get me here, didn’t you?”
Carolina nodded. “We certainly did. At considerable risk.”
“So please, ask your questions. I have a sense of who comes through that door after you. I know what that means.”
Carolina looked down at the floor briefly and then up at Hernan again. “I have bank records dating back to the start of the war. These records were tied to an investment group with an uncanny ability to predict the movement of ships, major campaigns, bot purchases, munitions—a kind of financial clairvoyance that served the officers who held your post of Deputy War Chief on Etterus. That clairvoyance translated into field orders that changed the course of the war, Chief Hernan.”
He took a deep breath. “Who the hell are you, young lady? Really?”
“You know what I’m talking about, this conspiracy?”
Both his eyebrows rose. “Conspiracy? I do know what you’re talking about, yes, but I’m not sure that’s the word I’d use.”
“I’ll tell you who I am if you make this easy on us both. I need to know. We’ve come too far to be stonewalled by you, Chief Hernan.”
“You’re talking about Polaris. And Polaris wasn’t a conspiracy but a source, literally the best intelligence source Etterus ever had. Nobody knew about Polaris except me and the Chief.”
“And you trusted this source?”
“For every single minute of every single day of the nine years I was in that post, and subsequently. It would have been suicidal not to. I don’t know about the investment angle you’re talking about, but whenever we got intel from Polaris it was one-hundred-percent reliable and literally saved Etterus more times than I could begin to count.”
“Do you know who the source was?”
“I was read in by my predecessor to trust it. Nothing specific, just that Polaris was an external source, friendly, and completely reliable—and I mean perfect. My belief was that it was from Athos by way of an internal AI surveillance network within the Protectorate. A string of Maícons tied together or the like.”
“You didn’t ever think it might be too perfect?”
“Sure I did. What was I supposed to do, though? Allow my home planet to burn because Polaris was too accurate? My responsibility was to my people and my post. And, I should say, you’re suspicious of everything in warfare if you like your head, even the rare certainties.”
“Would it shock you if I told you I have records that show this same program operated in the Protectorate? That there was a Trasp arm as well?”
“Miss, I have lived my entire life in this war. There is literally nothing you can tell me about it that would shock me. As the Deputy War Chief, I was a puppet of the Chief and the HC. Before that I was a puppet of the Commodore of the Fleet. Before that I was a puppet of my superior officers. So why should it shock me to find out that the HC was a puppet of forces outside Etterus, or that similar forces pulled on the Protectorate’s same strings? What is this about, really? What do you really want to know, my dear? I’ll help if I can, but you strike me as a fish out of water if all this is beyond you.”
Carolina sighed.
“Let me help you, dear. Why are you out here? And I don’t mean your mission, I mean you, personally. Start at the very beginning.”
A puff of air escaped Carolina’s lips, quite involuntarily. She shook her head. “That seems like ages ago.”
“How long was it, in reality?”
“A year and a half or so.”
Hernan’s eyes tracked away from Carolina for a moment. She turned to see Sebastian, appearing in the doorway to the medical bay. He looked over and slowly stepped inside, leaning against the back wall.
Hernan looked back to her. “No such thing as a smile without teeth. He’s one of mine. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Your life’s not yours to bet old man,” Transom said. “Pretend I’m not here, just like you were a moment ago.”
“Sebastian—”
Transom cut her off. “Tell him everything. Go ahead. I’m not here for him, boss. I’m here for you.”
“Do I know you, son?” Hernan asked Transom.
“I am the Angel of Death as far as you’re concerned, so be a nice little bulldog and tell the young lady what she needs to know so I don’t have to put your knees in a vise.”
“Definitely one of mine,” Hernan said, laughing as he turned to Carolina. “So, you were saying?”
“It started, actually, with my aunt. The woman you were talking about earlier—Miranna—it was her daughter, Sayla Purcell, my aunt—”
“Carly is what? A nickname? You’re a Dreeson? You have the look.”
“Carolina Dreeson.”
“Barnard’s daughter, I take it?” Both Hernan’s eyebrows rose again at the news.
Carolina nodded. Akop Hernan paused for a moment to process her identity.
“And Sayla?” Hernan asked.
“Suicide,” Carolina replied. “Allegedly.”
“And, let me guess, you didn’t believe it and started poking around and found out that she’d been poking around herself? I see. And the rabbit hole keeps getting deeper and deeper.” He looked over at Transom. “And darker and darker.”
“Something like that.”
“And you thought Polaris was the bottom of it?”
Carolina sighed.
“Sorry to say,” Akop Hernan stated, shaking his head. “Yet another false bottom, I’d wager.”
“But you don’t even know what Polaris is, Chief Hernan, at least if we take you at your word.”
“That’s true. But I think we could help each other, Carolina. I really do. I can see your conundrum. The second he walked into the room, I could see it. And it’s true, I may be concealing information that could be useful to you. And this man here, no doubt he’s told you his preference—how we extract intel from a stubborn source. Fifty-fifty that he’s even convinced you to use such methods before.”
“No. Never,” Carolina insisted. “I do know what you’re talking about, though.”
“I thought we agreed to pretend I wasn’t in the room,” Transom said.
“But you are in the room, son. And you came in for a reason. Like I said, the teeth. So allow me to make my counterproposal before we do anything permanent.”
Carolina shrugged and gestured for Hernan to continue.
“It’s true I have a lot of useful information in my head. And it’s true this man knows methods to extract every last bit of it, and no doubt a lot of what I know would be useful to you. But this old brain isn’t a mere repository of information, dear girl, it’s much more useful as a processor of it. I propose you show me everything—your bank records, the data you talked about, your Aunt’s records. Let me run it through this old processor and see if I can’t help you get a little further down your rabbit hole.”
“And in return?”
“Well, for one, I get to keep my head attached to the rest of my body a little longer—the way I prefer it. And when I’ve taken you as far as you can go, I’ll let you decide what to do with me then. I can see you, dear girl. Just like your grandmother. You’ve got discernment. All I want is a chance to help you, and if I do, in exchange, I’d like you to take me home. That’s all. The offensive is here, and I’ve more than done my part for Etterus over a lifetime. I just want to get back to my daughters and my grandchildren—to see them safely through the rest of the offensive, as best I can.”
“We’ll see about all that,” Transom said.
Carolina looked over at Transom. He shook his head. “Fields isn’t going to like it.”
“For the record,” Hernan said. “I do my best thinking with my knees outside the vise, Sebastian.”
Transom looked down at him. “Call me Sebastian again, and you’ll be begging me for the vise, Bulldog.”
Hernan laughed.
“What should I call you, then, son?”
“Don’t call me son either. Call me Transom.”
For the briefest of moments, there was a sudden look of recognition in Hernan’s eyes, just a flash. A pinpoint of shock so unexpected even a trained actor like Bulldog Hernan couldn’t conceal it. Even Carolina noticed.
“Well then, Ms. Dreeson,” Akop Hernan said. “Here we all are.”
When Carolina left the med bay with Transom, she entertained a brief meeting with both Etterans on the flight deck. The Maícons participated as well. Carolina had more or less made up her mind, but she still wanted to hear about all the possible threats, the blind spots. “The safest thing will be to kill him at the end of it,” Fields told her. “You realize that?”
“Maybe so,” Carolina said. “We can decide that then.”
Carolina asked Maícon Prime to brief Hernan. He could read him in and react to Hernan’s reactions without any human bias. No amount of charm would sway the ancient AI, nor would any deceptive behavior escape his never-tiring, always-discerning watch. He had shifted back to his usual form—a Maícon shell, familiar enough to the old Etteran.
“He was sincere with you, Captain,” Maícon Prime stated before agreeing to brief Hernan. “For whatever it’s worth, his angle was exactly as he said—to get home to his family.”
“He’ll have to earn that,” Carolina answered. “So, I guess, the sooner the better then.”
The ship was as crowded as the Yankee-Chaos had been in a long while. Carolina agreed to free Hernan from his restraints, but she instructed Maícon to keep him in the med bay—the rest of the ship remaining strictly off-limits.
Occasionally, Transom would wander down to observe in person. Much of the time, Carolina was watching from the flight deck. Though almost all of Hernan’s time consisted of Maícon standing by to answer questions or offer the next piece of information while Hernan read, seldom reacting beyond the occasional pensive look or stroke of the chin.
Transom was sitting silently the second evening when Ren came in with Hernan’s dinner.
“There’s that ray of sunshine I’ve been missing,” he remarked, looking over at the doctor.
“The absolute fastest way for you to have your head taken off your body,” Transom barked, glaring at Hernan, “would be for you to be the slightest bit disrespectful to that woman one more time.”
His knife was out, pointed in Hernan’s direction before he’d finished speaking.
“Hmm,” Hernan replied. “Duly noted. I see she must be very important to you, Transom.”
“She’s my surgeon. I, on the other hand, am your butcher if you mouth off to her again. Mind your reading, Chief.”
“Very well. Thank you for bringing me dinner, doctor.”
Apart from that brief interaction, all Hernan’s other conversations were with Maícon Prime.
At the end of the second day, after Hernan had read his fill and fallen asleep, Maícon left to meet with Carolina on the flight deck. Transom was sitting with her as he arrived, discussing the possibility of a dead end, the Trasp offensive, and their next moves.
“How’s the briefing going, robot?” Transom asked.
“It’s difficult to tell how productive it will be,” Maícon answered. “I can say Hernan is a shockingly incisive thinker for a man of any age. I have been surprised by his ability to synthesize this new knowledge. It is not difficult to see why your planet put him in charge of the military. Actually, he reminds me of someone we both know quite well, Captain.”
“Wait, what?” Transom said. “You’re not suggesting?”
“Suggesting what, Sebastian?” Carolina responded, turning toward him.
“You’re talking about Barnard, right? And Carolina’s grandmother, who this guy worked with and clearly—”
“Transom!”
“I was merely remarking on the similarity in the formidable nature of their minds and their strategic natures,” Maícon stated. “Barnard Dreeson’s paternity is not in question, Sebastian. The timing of Carolina’s grandmother’s ambassadorship is off by fifteen years. Barnard would have been a teenager when Miranna Dreeson first met Hernan. Do you not think I might have mentioned something like that before bringing him aboard?”
“It wouldn’t be the first major surprise you walked us right into, Prime,” Transom said. “I’m just asking the question.”
“Perhaps your first-hand experience with the way the Dreesons guard their bloodline should have answered that question before it was asked.”
Transom turned his head back around, glaring at Maícon.
“Anyway,” Carolina said, taking a deep breath as she invited Maícon to continue.
“Mostly Chief Hernan is still assimilating information,” Maícon said. “I estimate he should be ready to speak to you by this time tomorrow.”
“You reckon old Bulldog will have anything useful to say?” Transom asked Maícon.
There was something in Sebastian’s tone—the way he said Bulldog—that elicited a cold, angry look from Carolina. Maícon paused for a moment before answering, tilting his head toward Transom as though to warn him.
“I do think he has something to add,” Maícon said after a pause. “Yes. It may not be what we expect, and it certainly won’t be what we want—whatever that may be. But I do respect the man’s mind.”
“Thank you, Prime,” Carolina said. “Please carry on when he wakes up.”
Transom looked over at her. Carolina shook her head at him angrily.
“No being has been closer to the Dreeson family for longer than I have,” Maícon stated. “Akop Hernan is not in the Dreeson family line.”
Transom grinned and looked back at Maícon. “Methinks the robot doth protest too much.”
Carolina glared over at Transom.
“Grampa Bulldog,” Sebastian stated, laughing to himself.
Carolina shot out of her seat.
“You shut your mouth, Sebastian!” She shouted, leaping on top of him too fast for him to push her back.
Transom, wide-eyed, stood as best he could, his legs astride the seat beneath him, but not before Carolina punched him square in the cheekbone as he was standing, leaning away from her. He put out an arm, grabbing Carolina by the bicep to hold her back, and, to his shock, she continued to pound away at his arm with her free fist, until he grabbed her other arm by the wrist.
“Holy hell, Dreeson, take a breath,” he barked at her.
Maícon stepped between them forcefully just as it seemed Carolina was lowering her head to bite the hand that was clutching her upper arm.
“Carolina, what the hell?” Sebastian said, wide-eyed.
“Now would be the time to depart the flight deck please, Sebastian,” Maícon stated, holding Carolina at bay.
“With pleasure,” he said shaking his head.
“Don’t you ever talk about my family!” She shouted at him down the hallway. “Ever!”
Transom looked back to see her collapse back into the Captain’s chair, into a puddle of tears as the door shut behind him.
Sōsh and Draya were sitting at the atrium table as Transom walked in, shaking his head.
“What the hell was that about?” Sōsh asked.
Transom snorted, a confounded look on his face. He didn’t answer, just kept walking toward the back of the ship.
“Transom?”
He turned toward Sōsh and shrugged. “Athosian-Etteran relations. I’d advise everyone to avoid the subject for a time.”
Nothing much changed for Hernan over the following day, though even he could sense a shift on the ship. He hadn’t heard the disturbance, but he did surmise something out there had prompted the doctor to retreat to her med bay for much of the day. They exchanged a few words over the course of the morning, but little of substance.
By mid-afternoon, he declared that he was ready to speak with the Captain. He’d seen enough.
She came down by herself, another clue to the eminently perceptive Bulldog that something was amiss amongst the crew.
Ren offered to excuse herself, but Carolina invited her to remain. The doctor, for her part, didn’t know any more about the incident than the rest of the crew. Transom hadn’t uttered another word about it, but everyone could sense the tension. The doctor knew Carolina well enough to read it on her face. There was something eating at her. Something deep.
“I cannot solve your puzzle for you, Ms. Dreeson,” Hernan began. “One of three things is true: You are either missing a critical piece of information; our fundamental assumptions about the puzzle are wrong; or both. Just like in politics or physics, all things in war make sense. When it seems they do not, you either lack the critical piece of information or have the wrong suppositions about the meaning of the information you do have. My guess is that both may be the case here. So, either you have held back a key piece from me or it is missing. My advice to you is to look at the piece of information that seems to make the least sense. That glaring thing is usually the key. Go back to it and reconsider it from every angle you wouldn’t ordinarily consider—back to the very foundations of your belief systems. Maybe start at gravity and work your way up, and I’m only being slightly hyperbolic. Think of what you most believe to be true, imagine the opposite to be true and then begin. Reprocess this information, then …”
Hernan paused, examining Carolina’s face. She couldn’t take it—that discerning look. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Carolina began to cry.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes, shook her head at Hernan, turned and left the room.
“She knows, dear doctor,” Hernan said gesturing toward the doorway with his head. “Go.”
“What is it?” Ren asked.
“I don’t know,” Hernan insisted, “but she does.”
Ren ran after Carolina, out toward the atrium and the front of the ship.
Transom was standing at the back wall of the atrium talking with Fields and Draya, who were sitting at the table, clearly shocked at seeing Carolina rush past them in that state.
“What did that old man say to her?” Transom barked at Ren as she came into the atrium.
“Nothing,” Ren said, continuing through the room.
She stopped suddenly as she made her way toward the Captain’s state room. Ren turned back into the atrium.
“He didn’t say anything. So help me if you touch that old man, Sebastian …”
Then the doctor turned, following after Carolina.
“Not the answer she was looking for, I guess,” Draya said.
“Seldom is,” Fieldstone said, shaking his head. “Least not in my lifetime, anyways.”
Ren didn’t get in to see her, just knocked on Carolina’s door long enough for the Captain to tell her she wanted to be left alone—to go away, give her time.
So she did.
Carolina didn’t come out for dinner. Transom spoke with Maícon Prime and Akop Hernan, and neither of them knew what truth had been revealed to Carolina, so nobody had any idea why she seemed to be taking it like somebody close to her had died. In truth, that perception wasn’t so far from reality.
Late that evening, the ship’s Maícon sent for Hernan to come up to the flight deck with Maícon Prime. It was the first look the old man had gotten of the ship, and he was weak on his feet, having been confined to the med bay for days after being incapacitated on Petros. He shuffled through the atrium, taking a look at the ship and the new faces he saw populating it. Maícon helped him along, up past Carolina’s state room to the flight deck.
“Interesting little ship,” he stated as Maícon helped him to the seat beside Carolina. “Even more interesting crew.”
“Where would you like us to take you, Bulldog?” Carolina asked. “You said you wanted to go home, right? To your family?”
“I would. I would very much like that.”
“Name your destination, Chief. We’ll take you home.”
“There’s a small outpost on a planet called Theta-Nikorla. I moved my girls there a little over six months ago when I suspected the offensive was imminent.”
“The Thetas? I didn’t know there was anything out there.”
“Good strategy for someone looking to hide.”
“Well, that’s a bit of a ride from here, I suppose. Feel free to move about the ship. I don’t suppose I have to mention that Maícon will be watching you closely.”
“Ms. Dreeson, you never had a thing to fear from me. Certainly not after you told me who you are.”
“I know, Chief. It’s just … I suppose it’s hard to turn it off, that caution, that mentality.”
“It sure is, dear. That is a fact.”
Bulldog looked over at Carolina. He could tell she was decidedly subdued. It seemed the conversation was over, and perhaps if he’d been younger, he’d have taken the cue and left. But his old legs and the low rise of the seat beside Carolina left him reluctant to attempt to stand on his own.
“So, by any chance—” he began to ask only to find Carolina already shaking her head.
“Maybe I’ll say. Maybe. But my crew. We’ve been together now for too long. I need to tell them first. I owe them that.”
“Understood,” Hernan said. “Whatever it is, dear, it doesn’t reflect on you. I meant it, what I said about you. You have a good heart, Carolina Dreeson. I can tell these things. Kind and brave. Just like her.”
Carolina crossed her arms and sighed, nodding as Bulldog gestured for Maícon Prime to help him back to his feet.
Carolina spent much of the transit in isolation on the flight deck. Sebastian, whom the others would usually have relied upon as intermediary, was keeping his distance. Even Maícon Prime was told by his counterpart to leave him and Carolina be, as she was going over their data again, piece by piece, interpreting it through the new lens—the true foundations at the base of the West Battery War.
Sebastian expected to see her slowly peek her head out of the shell she’d turned the flight deck into, but as the days passed, Carolina grew more closely guarded—the flight deck door closed far more often than not. He began to wonder if something had changed.
By the time they approached Theta-Nikorla, the rest of the crew had gotten to know old Bulldog Hernan fairly well. He’d heard of Transom, of course, because word of his exploits during the infamous Clem Aballi episode had gotten back to many of Hernan’s agents in the Lettered Systems. News of Transom’s death had been just as widely spread among the Etterans, confirming to Transom for the first time officially that Etterus, at least initially, thought him to be dead.
Fieldstone, too, wasn’t a totally unknown quantity to the old man, at least in his participation in operations and larger offensives. Though Bulldog could never recall hearing of Fieldstone directly.
Ren and Bulldog eventually developed a warmer rapport than their initial meeting might have presaged.
But of all the crew, he most enjoyed his time with Sōsh and Draya. The three could often be spotted at the aft end of the atrium table intensely focused on their spirited three-way Sabaca games. It was the first time in a long time Sōsh had competition that could consistently play at his level, though Draya was almost always first out and left to watch the remainder of the game as spectator to the two superior players.
Hernan remarked that he’d never seen a non-professional player as sharp as Sōsh who wasn’t a retiree who spent all his days at the sticks.
“Same as we all say,” Ren said. “Burch says he was even better before.”
“Burch didn’t know me before,” Sōsh replied. “I was way better than Burch thinks.”
The evening before they were slated to arrive at Theta-Nikorla, all the humans aboard were strapped in at the atrium table, listening as Bulldog regaled them with stories of the Letters from decades before, when he was an operative, when there were hardly any local authorities beyond the municipalities of individual colonies—“Our Wild West,” he called it. Carolina interrupted, appearing unannounced and rather silently in the corridor to the flight deck.
“Sebastian,” she said, when Fields noticed her. All eyes suddenly shifted her way. “I need to speak with you, please.”
“Sure thing, boss,” he said, unbelting and floating his way toward the front.
The atrium was as awkwardly quiet as any of them could remember.
By the time Transom got up front, Carolina was already strapped in the Captain’s seat, almost eliciting a joke from him about the belt at least holding her back from attacking him again. He swallowed that remark and sat.
She almost didn’t have to speak. He could read her face.
“I owe you an apology, Sebastian,” she said, shaking her head, her face awash in shame. “There was a lot there. More than I knew even. I hadn’t figured it all out yet, but it’s almost like my subconscious had. When I tell everyone, it’ll make a little more sense.”
“What will? You turning into an animal, Dreeson?”
“Yeah, among other things. I’m sorry, though. There was a lot of personal emotional stuff simmering there, but that’s no excuse.”
“Look, Carolina, I’ve had a hell of a lot worse from a CO before. Most of them knew better than to try and get away with belting me in the face, though. But I’ll always have faith in you.”
Carolina sighed and shook her head.
“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”
“I do, yes,” Carolina answered. “But I can’t do it with Hernan aboard. Maícon and I have been evaluating, playing out scenarios, and I just can’t overstate the tenuous nature of things. I promise you it’ll make sense when I do. It won’t excuse my ridiculous and horrifyingly embarrassing behavior, but I think you’ll understand why I’m being so guarded now.”
“And I promise never to joke about your family. Everyone’s got a sore spot and I poked yours. I suppose I wanted to see what would happen. Now I know.”
“Theres more to it than that, but I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure thing, boss. No more jokes about grandpa Bulldog having your father’s eyes and your grandma’s cheekbones.”
“You asshole,” Carolina said, laughing. “Transom. You are such an asshole.”
“Look on the bright side, Dreeson. At least you met your grandma.”
“I know. I know. I take that for granted with all the … I don’t know how you say?”
“Weight?”
“Yeah, the weight of it. My family.”
“Water under the bridge.”
“I need you by my side, Sebastian. I’m going to need you more than ever.”
“Locked in, Dreeson. A hundred percent.”
“I can’t tell Hernan, but I’ll tell the others as soon as he’s off the ship safely. Please let them know quietly.”
Transom nodded and pushed himself up from the chair beside Carolina.
She hardly slept as they approached Theta-Nikorla. There was still so much uncertain, almost as though everything she thought she knew needed re-evaluating from the bottom up. Her life. The galaxy itself. All of it.
Nothing would ever be the same.
There was only one city on Theta-Nikorla. It, too, was called Nikorla. But Carolina was surprised to see, as they entered the planet’s atmosphere, that the settlement was much larger than she expected. According to Hernan, who gave a brief history after they’d landed, the settlement had been there nearly seventy years, hidden away and slowly, quietly growing. He said the city had nearly a half million residents, which looked about right from the air.
The atmosphere wasn’t breathable, but a very interesting feature of the landscape—at least around the city of Nikorla—was that there were several varieties of trees that had been genetically engineered to thrive here. There were no diamond bubbles like on Petros. Instead, the center of the city ran a nanosheet that covered the downtown, powered from the central power grid. And outside the city proper, where suburban homes seemed to pop out of the landscape between trees, each little homestead ran their own bubble—some on solar, some on microgenerators. Hernan figured it was only a matter of time before the city built another reactor and brought the suburbs into the fold, triggering the next round of expansion out into the empty countryside, where small saplings were just now beginning to take root and taste the metallic, ammonia-tinged, alien air.
Hernan invited them all to dinner. After reflecting on the turn of events, he came to realize Transom’s outcome—being dead without being dead—was about the best gift they could have given him in his twilight years. Etterus was never fully going to let him go. Now, he could go home to his girls and his grandkids.
“A proper meal is the least my family can do for you all,” he said.
Carolina dropped him close to home with Maícon Prime to walk with him. She told Bulldog that she couldn’t tell him what she’d learned about the war—that it was his time and Miranna’s time to leave it to Carolina’s generation to solve, that it was too dire a secret for the truth to be out, and to watch over his family and forget about the war.
“If you’re not going to tell me, you’re not going to tell me,” he answered. “But I will never forget about the war until it’s over. If the offensive turns our way, the war won’t forget about us, Ms. Dreeson.”
It was sound thinking.
She saw off Maícon Prime and Bulldog at the back airlock, promising the whole crew would be along soon, after she briefed them. Then, when the ship’s Maícon had touched the Yankee-Chaos down out in the naked flats, a fair distance from Hernan’s homestead in the suburbs, Carolina gathered everyone in the Atrium.
“My father knows, I think,” she began. “I can’t see a way he doesn’t know. But now that I know, I understand why he couldn’t tell me. I can’t imagine he’s told anyone, even his closest advisors.
“Hernan talked of the piece that didn’t fit. That this was usually the key, and he was right. Only he never had that piece, and we didn’t have it until recently. I didn’t share it with any of you because I didn’t see how it could be relevant. It didn’t make any sense.
“The assassin, Ren—on that data stick he gave you, there was a recording of an interrogation, a very brutal and difficult to watch end of a man’s life. He was an Iophan intelligence operative named Mazziri. And I had no idea at first why it was relevant to us until the interrogator—the same man Ren met in the chocolate shop—during the interrogation, they started talking about Ash-Vedal, the shootout we had there. And it turns out that this Mazziri had tried to pay this assassin, and apparently the ones shooting as us that day, to kill me without ever revealing to the assassins who I was. But Mazziri knew. The Iophans knew. It was the Iophans who tried to kill me.”
Transom was grinning, shaking his head as though some connection had been made. “This assassin, Ren? You said he was big, but he was like a huge guy, fiercely ugly, dark hair, gnarly looking?”
“Yes! You saw him, Sebastian?” Ren said, wide-eyed.
“I know the guy. He was at Ash-Vedal. I saw him.”
“Apparently, he didn’t appreciate his services being used that way,” Carolina stated. “Not without full disclosure. But the Iophans didn’t disclose who I was to the assassins they hired, because they knew the power out in the Letters never would have sanctioned it—certainly not the Rexes.”
“I thought it was the Rexes shooting at us,” Sōsh added.
Carolina shook her head. “The shooters were mercenaries, hired by the Iophans,” Carolina replied. “At first, I disregarded this news, because it happened months ago, and presumably wasn’t a threat anymore. Plus, we had a much more pressing mission acquiring Hernan on Alpha-Petros. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because it didn’t make any sense—Iophos, our sister ring, our closest ally. Why would they want to kill me?
“I couldn’t process it. I didn’t want to believe it, even with Mazziri’s own admission. I just thought, maybe it’s an anomaly. But it was eating away at me, gnawing at my subconscious. And then, Hernan told me to think about our most basic foundational assumptions about the information we had. And instantly, everything popped into place—the moment I allowed myself to question my own most fundamental personal belief: that my father wasn’t the most powerful man in the galaxy. I asked myself the question I couldn’t ever bear to ask: What if Barnard Dreeson were powerless?”
Everyone at the table wore a similar befuddled look. Carolina could tell it didn’t make any sense to them.
“I think probably it’s similar to how things in the Letters don’t make sense to me the way they do for all of you. But you need to know the dynamics of our system—the two rings, Athos and Iophos. Both unbelievably huge populations, but we assume because Athos is much bigger that we’re the dominant force. Iophos seems to be content to go along as the junior partner in the system. Seems. You need to imagine that this has never been the case. War, though, between us can never be a possibility, because our two populations, our two economies, the center of the entire Battery’s industrial might—this entire part of the galaxy really—all of it sits on these two relatively fragile rings that could be destroyed in an afternoon and swallowed up by our two gas giants if the type of fighting that your peoples have been engaged in ever broke out in Dreeson’s System.”
“But wait,” Ren asked, “if you’re right, Carolina, then Iophos is what, pushing the Trasp into fighting the Etterans? To what end?”
“I’m right,” Carolina insisted. “Maícon and I reviewed all our files, point by point. We overlaid the historical record. Everything fits, even down to his own eyewitness account of the start of the war on Veronia—the spark. Everything fits. But it’s more nuanced than Iophos wanting the Trasp to win the war or even fight the war. The Iophans want control of Athos. You could think of it like, they want to be the rider on top of an elephant. And we Athosians are just this big, lumbering, unwitting entity they’re trying to control.”
Sōsh shook his head. “But why? All that slaughter? Decades of brutality?”
“Evil doesn’t explain itself,” Fieldstone answered. “It doesn’t need to.” He hadn’t made eye contact with anyone since Carolina started talking. He was staring a hole through the atrium table. A puff of air escaped the veteran’s nose. “You can feel it though. Deep beneath the thing. In the breath of the galaxy, you can feel it. Under everything. That thing. That’s what you’re talking about, Captain.”
Fields still didn’t look up.
“That’s the fight now,” Carolina answered, nodding. “This conversation cannot leave our group. I don’t even know where to begin, but I know it begins now. We must solve this, and we must do it without Athos and Iophos ever fighting. If we fight, it would ruin the human race for ten thousand years. We may never recover.”
“If I may, Captain?” Fieldstone asked, looking up now toward Carolina. She gestured for him to share what he had to say.
“You could tell me it’s the Trasp. You could tell me it’s the Iophans. You could even tell me it’s the humans of Earth coming over the great cosmic distance that separates us. I’ve been fighting now for long enough to know what I’ve been fighting. We can shift our focus, move our target, change our strategy, but it’s still the same war. It always has been. It’s always the same enemy. Every time.”
For a while, there was silence at the table as everyone took a moment to reflect, to interpret, to process.
Fields, after that long pause, finally raised his head, looking across the table to Carolina.
“Yet we fight that war still. It’s the only fight worth fighting. So, all that being the case, if we’re good here for now, Captain, what do you say we go join Chief Hernan and his family for dinner and worry about the war tomorrow?”