Epilogue

Eight metric weeks after its captain was acquitted on charges of mutiny, the HSF Magnum pulled into dock at Triad Naval Base in orbit of Mars. Once the mooring clamps were in place and the airlocks mated and secure, Ox dismissed his crew from duties, commanding all of them to take three days leave.

“What about the reactor watch?” asked Phlegm. “We can’t just leave the ship unattended.”

“I’ll hold the reactor watch for now,” Ox told him. “Once those slackers who stayed behind report for duty tomorrow, I’ll have them handle it. It’ll be good for them.”

Phlegm looked doubtful. “How do you think they’re going to take it? Will we be able to maintain discipline on the ship after all that has happened?”

Ox shrugged. “Tork ‘em,” he said. “They can either follow my orders and behave as part of my crew or I’ll derm their transfer requests for them and get a new crew. I’m well beyond worrying about what anyone thinks about me.”

“Fair enough,” Phlegm said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay aboard and give you a hand?”

Ox shook his head sternly. “Get the tork out of here, Phlegm. Go out, hit the intox clubs, have yourself a good time. I don’t want you within half a klick of this vessel for the next three days. And that’s a torkin’ order.”

“Aye, Captain,” Phlegm said with a grin. “If you insist.”

“I insist,” Ox assured him.

Manny volunteered to stay aboard until the left behind crew reported back. She had orders to return to her own ship but it was currently out on a run and would not return for more than a week. This offer, Ox accepted.

“I’m sure we can find something for you to do,” Ox told her.

“I’m sure you can,” she said with a sly smile.

Taz, who had watched the entire exchange, said nothing. After all, Ox and Manny were friends and both were in the navy. Manny probably would be very useful in helping keep the reactor watch on the otherwise empty ship.

“I’m glad he’ll have someone to talk to,” she told Manny brightly.

Gath, who had also watched the entire exchange, just mentally shook his head. Even after all this time, the spacie propensity for self-delusion still fascinated him.

Gath and Taz both had orders to report back to CVS by the fastest available transport. They, along with the Modoc, would be catching a freighter that was heading to Earth in three hours. They had just enough time to gather all their things and get across to the civilian port before final boarding. The four of them made a final tour of the ship, saying goodbye to the crewmembers they had served with on this most stressful and interesting mission. Quite a few tears were shed during these rounds.

“We did the mothertorker, didn’t we, Gath?” Ox said as they met in the Magnum‘s foyer just before departure.

“We sure the tork did,” Gath agreed. They then exchanged the traditional departure shake reserved for close friends who would not be seeing each other for a while. Two elbow bumps, a fist bump with the right hand, and then a grasping hug and two back pats with the left arms. They held the hug part a little longer than was traditional.

“It was an honor serving under you, Ox,” Gath told him.

“I told you I’d make a spacer out of you, didn’t I?” Ox returned. He wiped at his eye a little and then patted Gath on the back one more time. “I’m going to miss your food most of all. I don’t know how I can go back to standard fare after eating your chow.”

“Find yourself a groundie and make him your culinary officer,” Gath suggested.

“I might just do that.”

The natives and Yank all said their goodbyes and then it was Taz’s turn. She gave her husband a quick, one handed hug and an even quicker peck on the cheek.

“Keep your eye on the next data dump,” she told him. “Hopefully we’ll finally get our sperm and egg data so we can start cooking one up.”

“Will do,” he told her. “Hopefully our financials will update as well. Everything has been such a mess because of the traveling.”

With that, Gath and the others left the ship. Yank took Cedric and Tom back to the space ladder port so they could return to the colony on Libby. Gath, Taz and the Modoc warriors arrived aboard the Redrun 6 twenty minutes before they sealed up the doors for the pre-departure checks.

The Redrun streaked out across open space, its fusion engines pushing it at one G. The natives all slept through the acceleration cycle thanks to the Phent-D injections. Gath and Taz no longer bothered. After so much travel during their mission, neither one of them were much bothered by Delta-V sickness anymore. Gath was even able to eat a burger and drink a beer during the cycle. Ox really had made a spacie out of him.

It was during the period of coasting that the news everyone had been waiting for finally made its way through the now unrestricted circuit points from the AZ system. Doc Bookender, the first of the conspirators to face trial for his role in the concluding resolution, had been found guilty of crimes against humanity the day before Magnum had started its return journey back to the Sol. The news they received now was of his sentencing. Taz and Gath watched the holo clip of it in the Redrun‘s roach pit.

“I have examined the probationary department’s report on you in detail, Doc Bookender,” said the judge in charge of the case. The Doc himself, standing in his Fleet uniform before the podium to learn his fate, looked ten years older than the last time Gath had seen him.

“Suspended sentence,” Taz guessed, her voice with a strong tone of cynicism in it.

“They wouldn’t dare,” Gath said.

They didn’t dare.

“While I appreciate,” His Honor continued, “your many years of service to the Fleet in both of your careers, your medical prowess, and your otherwise unblemished record, the crime you have been convicted of is perhaps the most serious offense undertaken by so-called civilized humans in the past thousand years. It is a crime that must be punished harshly if for no other reason than to give others pause if they should contemplate a similar endeavor in the future. For that reason alone, I have an obligation to sentence you to the maximum penalty available to us. Doc Bookender, you are hereby sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole or compassionate release.”

There was some uproar from the spectators but not as much as that displayed by Doc Bookender himself. He shook his head in disbelief at his fate.

“Do you have anything to say, Doc?” the judge asked him. “It is your right to be heard.”

Bookender looked up at the judge. “Yes, I have something to say,” he told him. “I did what I thought was the right thing. We have marines dying over there on Sol and an entire population of Earth natives who are going to die a horrible death when Mortimer arrives. Was what we tried to do so terrible? We found a painless, non-violent way to prevent those deaths and that suffering, to put an end to the untenable situation on Earth. You put a stop to it and called it genocide. You’re now going to send me to prison for the rest of my life.

“What now though? The problem is still there. We’re still going to keep expending tremendous amounts of resources to feed and clothe the homebodies. Marines are going to continue to die for those ungrateful people. And there still is no solution to the problem in sight. If my idea is not the answer, what is?”

“I don’t know what the answer is, Doc,” the judge told him, “but it certainly is not genocide, and we still have a few thousand years to figure it out.”

The judge gave a nod and two court officers approached. They put handcuffs on the Doc and led him away to his fate.

The next morning, it was reported, Admiral Zeal’s trial would begin.

The wheels of the cargo aircraft thumped down on the runway and the passenger area was filled with the roar of the reverse thrust. The aircraft went through a serious of turns and then the engines were shut down. Unlike the first time he had gone through this, Gath was now familiar with the routine.

“This is it, humes,” Gath told Catches No Fish and Fears No Darkness. “We’re back at CVS. Only one more flight to go.”

“Thank the spirits,” said Catches No Fish.

Fears No Darkness was a bit more morose. “Hopefully we’ll still be able to eat the blackberries and the fish when we get there,” he said bitterly.

“I think you stand a good chance, hume,” Taz added. “The very chaos before the judge sent the preliminary injunction works in your favor.”

They still did not know to what extent, if any, the plan to contaminate the Modoc’s food supply had been carried out. Reports out of the Sol system, though restored with the mysterious clearing up of the probe shortage, were still sketchy at best. When enquiries were sent on the status of the concluding resolution, no one wanted to give a specific answer for fear of being implicated in the scandal. They had not even been able to get confirmation that the Modoc plan officially existed, let alone if it had been implemented.

“Let’s get inside,” Gath suggested, opening the door into the cargo compartment. “We should be able to find some information there.”

They walked down the narrow aisle between the stacks of pallets and hydrogen tanks and arrived at the rear ramp just as it opened. Gath felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him as he beheld the inside of the CVS hangar with its AVTOLs and the maintenance crews scrambling about and the smell of machine oil and grease. And who should be standing at the bottom of the ramp but Gunnery Sergeant Korgan, he who had given Gath such a pleasant introduction to life at CVS all those cycles ago.

“Well, look what the tork the waste dump just dropped in here,” Korgan said as he saw Gath emerging. “They’ll let just about anyone serve these days, won’t they?”

“I’m like a pimple on your slagger, Gunny,” Gath told him with a smile. “I just keep popping up.”

“Good analogy,” the gunny said. “You always were a pain in my slagger.”

Gath walked up to the highest ranking enlisted marine on the base and they slapped elbows and did two hand slides. “It’s good to be back, Gunny,” he told him.

“No, it isn’t,” Korgan told him. “This place is still a punishment for something you did wrong in a previous life. Welcome back though.” He turned to Taz. “And you too, Corporal. How in the purg did you manage to get yourself assigned back here?”

“We requested it, Gunny,” she said. “After that whole clustertork we went through, they told us we could go to any assignment we wanted. We both chose CVS.”

“Why?” he asked. “Are you deranged?”

“I’ve been accused of that,” Gath replied.

He shook his head at their insanity. “Well, anyway, come see me before the end of the day for armor issue. There’s also a few things tactically we need to go over about the AOR.”

“Will do,” Taz said. She looked at him carefully. “How’s the mood here? I heard there are a lot of humes kind of scared about how this is all going to shake out.”

“There are a lot of nervous people around, that’s for damned sure,” he said. “The whiteshirts in particular. Scuttlebutt has it that they’re not going to go after anyone who supported the resolution unless they’re up at the ultra-white level, but ... well ... no one knows if that’s true or not.”

“They seemed pretty serious about Doc Bookender,” Gath said.

Korban nodded slowly. “Yeah, they certainly V-wasted his slagger. For now, we just go on with our jobs and hope for the best.”

“Are you in danger, Gunny?” Taz asked him.

He shrugged with feigned indifference. “I took over Sparky’s platoon when they pulled him off the line. I followed some orders to further the resolution. About a week after you all left, however, I changed my mind and came out against the resolution and have been on record as opposed to it ever since. Who knows?”

“I’m sure they’ll take that into consideration,” Taz said.

“I’m prepared to answer for my actions, just like you two were. I caught your trial on the holo, Stoner. I’ll tell you one thing, you’ve got a pair on you, hume.”

“Thanks, Gunny,” he said. “And I didn’t even slap them on anyone’s forehead.”

“How’s that?” Korban asked, confused.

“Never mind,” Gath said. “We’d better get inside. Who’s the OD today?”

“That would be Sparky himself.”

“No slag?” Gath asked, delighted. “They put him back on the line?”

“It was one of the first things they did once the injunction was issued. Everyone kind of went into protective mode at that point.”

“What about Colonel Lister?” Taz asked. “Is he still the CO?”

“For now,” Korban replied. He would say no more on that subject.

“Well, we better go check in with Sparky then,” Gath said. “Catch you later, Gunny.”

“Right,” Korban told him. As they started to walk to the tunnel entrance, he stopped them once more and stepped in front of the two Modoc.

“Is there something you require from us?” asked Fears No Darkness.

“I caught you two on the holos as well,” he told them. “Once they started to come through, anyway. You two did good out there. I can only image how much courage it took for you all to go on that mission. I wish you drank alcohol so I could buy you both a beer.”

Fears No Darkness smiled. “I wish I did as well,” he told the gunny.

It took them nearly twenty minutes to make it to Sparky’s office. Everyone they passed in the tunnels and in the building itself stopped them to give greetings, to ask questions, to tell them they had seen them on the holos. Gath sensed no hostility from the marines, only admiration and respect. It was quite a change from the CVS he had left behind.

At last, they reached the OD’s office and went inside. Sparky, wearing his white shirt and sipping from a cup of juice from the roach pit, stood and came around the desk to greet them. He did not bother with the ritual fist bump greeting. Instead, he wrapped up Taz and then Gath in a big bear hug.

“Tork me with a laser cutter,” he told them once the embraces were finished. “I cannot believe you two actually pulled that slag off.”

“It was quite a ride,” Gath assured him.

“We couldn’t have done it without you, Sparky,” Taz added. “If you hadn’t helped, we never would have gotten Fears No Darkness and Catches No Fish onto the Magnum. If we wouldn’t have had them, well ... who knows how things might have turned out?”

Sparky turned to the Modoc. “You humes were bad-slagger,” he told them. “I caught your interviews and your testimony on the holo. You really were the factor that turned this thing around.”

“We did what needed to be done,” Fears No Darkness said.

“And you did a Whoever damned good job of it,” Sparky said. He turned back to Gath. “What a slag storm it’s been around here since you left. That torker Colonel Lister actually had me put under arrest at one point.”

“He arrested you?” Taz asked. “For what?”

“He figured out that I was the one who authorized your flight to go remove those cartridges from the wells. He was able to extrapolate from that that you probably picked up your friends here on the same trip. Of course, that wasn’t until word started to filter back here through the incoming data dumps. You were probably more than halfway to the AZ by then.”

“Whoever wept, el-tee. I’m sorry about that,” Taz told him.

Sparky shook his head. “It was no big,” he assured her. “I spent less than twenty-four local in the stir. You see, by that time the opposition to the resolution was huge, much bigger than when you’d left. People were starting to wonder by then just what was going to happen to them when all the details finally came out. Opposition declarations were flooding in faster than we could keep up with them. Lister kept trying to control things and keep our part of the resolution thrusting, but no one would follow any orders anymore.”

“What changed everyone’s mind?” Gath asked. “When we left, three quarters of the humes here were in favor of it.”

“Your mission changed their minds,” Sparky said. “Especially when we heard that the Glock just let you go through the circuit point. Releasing that information was one of the dumbest things Zeal could have done. I’m guessing he figured it would rile everyone up about mutiny and what happens when people don’t follow orders—that’s how he presented the story, anyway—but what actually happened is that people started to realize how strongly you felt about the resolution. They started to think that if Commander Peckett on the Glock and Commander Dripper on the Magnum were willing to risk their careers and their freedom over the issue, that maybe they were standing on the wrong side of it.”

“Amazing,” Gath whispered.

“You humes inspired people much more than you think you did,” Sparky told them. “In any case, once Lister figured out how I’d helped you, he put me under arrest on a variety of charges. Someone with a whiter shirt than his overruled him, however. I was released and returned to the adjunct OD position the next day.” He grinned. “You should have seen how pissed off Lister was about that.”

“I can imagine,” Taz said, smiling.

“I’m pretty sure he’s feeling the noose tightening around his neck these days,” Sparky added. “He supported the resolution to the end, accused anyone who registered opposition to of treason. My guess is that the legal proceedings are going to reach at least down to his level. He saw what happened to Bookender. He’s pretty much been shut up in his office for the past two weeks.”

“I wish I could feel bad for him, but I don’t,” Gath said. “Tell me something, did anyone ever go out and replace those cartridges I took out of the wells?”

Sparky shook his head. “No one ever did. No one would follow an order to do so.”

“That’s good,” Gath said. He looked over at the Modoc and then back at Sparky. “And what about the plan to contaminate the Modoc’s food supply? Their fish and their blackberries? Did they ever move forward on that one?”

Catches No Fish and Fears No Darkness stared intently at Sparky, waiting for his answer. He did not let them suffer.

“Not even close,” he said. “They never got beyond the planning stage for that little mission. Too many people refused to participate in the resolution in general by the time they got their little genetic modifiers ready. Not a single blackberry or a single fish has been infused.”

An audible sigh of relief was expelled from both warriors at his words.

“Thank the spirits,” Fears No Darkness said.

“That is the best news I have heard since leaving this planet,” said Catches No Fish.

“I’m glad I could share it with you,” Sparky told them.

“When can we go home?” the quarterback asked next.

“I have priority orders to get you two a flight back to your territory as soon as possible,” Sparky told them. “I’m assuming that Taz and Gath will want to go with you?”

“Absolutely,” Gath said.

“Purg yes,” said Taz.

Sparky nodded. “How does first light tomorrow sound?”

Fears No Darkness answered, offering up a phrase he had learned in his travels with spacers and marines. “It sounds like a slagger-tork,” he said.

Just after sunrise the next day, the AVTOL 60 lifted off of the runway and made the transition to forward flight. It turned to the northeast and climbed to four thousand meters of altitude. Inside was Corporal Dill in the control seat and Taz in the right side seat. In the back was Gath, Catches No Fish and Fears No Darkness. Dill, Taz, and Gath wore their newly issued armor, complete with helmets and Z-55 rifles stowed in their leg holsters. The two Modoc were dressed in the deerskin clothing they had taken off in another AVTOL more than a few moons before. Both natives, however, had bags that contained shorts, shirts and shoes that they had worn in their travels. They wanted to keep them for mementoes of their journey—assuming, of course, that they weren’t summarily executed immediately upon landing. Neither of them looked out the viewscreen as they flew.

“Do you really think they’ll kill you for what you’ve done?” Gath asked them.

“I don’t really know,” Fears No Darkness said. “What we have done is unprecedented. No one has ever violated the law in the manner that we have for as long as the law has been in existence. We did have a compelling reason, but...” He shrugged. “I just don’t know.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to give you asylum?” Taz asked. “We can do it quite easily. Purg, you two could live like kings if you wanted to. You’re celebrities. They’ll give you your own talk show or something.”

“I do not know what a talk show is,” the quarterback said, “but I must decline nonetheless. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to go with you.”

“As did I,” said Catches No Fish.

“We must now face the consequences of our actions, no matter what those consequences may be. If we must die for our actions, so be it. At least I’ll die knowing that I sacrificed my life to save my people.”

“Fuckin A,” said Catches No Fish.

At Gath’s direction, Dill had programmed the AVTOL’s Flyer to take them directly to the village. They came in low, low enough to see more than a hundred Modoc looking up at them from their huts.

“Circle around a few times, Dill,” Gath told him. “Let’s make sure they know we’re here.”

“I’m on it,” Dill replied.

They made four passes back and forth. With each pass, more and more Modoc appeared below, their figures coming out of the woods, out of the huts, out of nowhere.

“I’m reading three hundred and eighteen homers down there, humes.” Dill informed them. “Enough to make sure you have a very bad day if they decide they want to give you one.”

“Fears No Darkness told me that four hundred and eighteen lived in his village when they left,” Gath replied. “Of course, four of the women were in late pregnancy and have probably delivered by now.”

“That’s a lot of torkin’ homers,” Dill said. “Are you sure you want to go down there?”

“We’ll be okay,” Gath said. “I’ll see where he wants us to land.”

The Modoc had been unable to hear the radio wave transmitted conversation because of the engine noise and the low voices. Gath flipped on his external speaker and turned his helmeted face to the quarterback. “Three hundred eighteen humes down there that the scanner can see,” he said. “Where do you want to put down?”

Fears No Darkness looked down at the scenery below. He pointed. “That clearing there, just to the south of the main village, by the north bank of the river. That is our bathing hole. Since it is a winter morning, no one should be there right now. Can you put us down there?”

“Easy as a handjob,” Gath assured him. He relayed their decision to Dill, who was not happy about it.

“That’s really torkin’ close to those homers, Gath,” he said. “It’s only about a hundred fifty meters.”

“They won’t hurt us, Dill,” Taz said. She was technically in charge of the mission. “Put us down where told.”

“Didn’t you say they might kill your two homers on sight?” Dill asked.

“They might,” Taz said, “but they won’t hurt us. Bring us down where indicated. Now, please. If anything happens to us, just lift off again.”

“You know I’m not going to leave a marine and a medic down there to fend for themselves in the middle of a homer hoard,” Dill protested. “You’re asking me to put my slagger at risk for this slag.”

“You will do as ordered, Dill,” Taz told him. “Put us down and we’ll exit the aircraft. If anything untoward happens, you can give us air support.”

“Wouldn’t it be a better idea to...”

“No,” Taz barked. “It wouldn’t. Put us down where instructed. Now.”

Dill shook his head. “You’re torkin’ funeral,” he said. He instructed the Flyer and the aircraft banked and began to transition to hover flight.

They set down in a spray of blowing snow and dirt, the wheels thumping to the surface just ten meters from the bank of the icy Pit River. Dill opened the rear ramp and kept the rotors turning.

“All right,” Gath told him. “We’re taking off our top armor and switching to the earbud comms.”

“You’re doing what?” Dill barked, speaking as if they were mad.

“Don’t worry about it,” Taz said. “We know what we’re doing.”

“You say so,” Dill said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Gath and Taz pulled off their helmets and shucked off their top armor, leaving them in their underarmor layer. They kept on their leg and waist armor and kept their weapons in their holsters. Each picked up a pack they had put provisions into. This might be a short deployment, but it also might be a long one.

“All right,” Gath told the Modoc. “We’re going out. Follow behind us. We’re going to walk straight from the bottom of the ramp until we’re well clear of the aircraft. The rotors are still turning and, while they’re high enough they won’t hit a human, we still don’t walk under them. Got it?”

“Got it,” Fears No Darkness said nervously.

Gath and Taz plugged in their earpieces and quickly mated them. They then walked down the ramp and continued toward the tree line. The two Modoc followed behind, carrying their own bags.

“You with us, Dill?” Taz asked as they approached the trees.

“I’m here.”

“Go ahead and lift off. Circle around at about a thousand meters AGL for now.”

“I’m on it,” Dill asked. “You should know, however, that there are more than thirty homers heading directly for you from the village. They’re less than fifty meters out now, moving at a good clip.”

“Understood,” Taz said. “Now launch.”

He launched, spraying the four of them with snow, pebbles, pine needles, and other debris. The AVTOL rose above the trees and then moved off to the south, transitioning back to forward flight. The engine noise faded away but did not disappear.

“Homers are still moving in,” Dill reported. “They’ll reach you in a minute or so.”

“Copy, Dill,” Taz said. “We’ll be fine.”

Fears No Darkness and Catches No Fish, meanwhile, were looking at the small clearing and the bank of the river in wonder and awe.

“We’re home,” Fears No Darkness said. “I was not sure I would ever see it again.”

“It has been quite a journey,” Catches No Fish agreed. “The Pit has never looked so beautiful to me.”

“What now?” Gath asked as he and Taz searched the tree line to the north, their unenhanced eyeballs searching for the figures of the Modoc warriors they knew were approaching. They could see nothing, could detect no sign of their presence as of yet.

“We should walk to the center of the clearing,” Fears No Darkness said. “We will wait for the warriors there. Do not draw your weapons no matter what happens. They may kill us, but I assure you that you will not be harmed in any way as long as you make no attempt to help us.”

“You expect us to just stand there and let you get killed?” Taz asked.

“Yes,” Fears No Darkness said. “That is exactly what I expect. We are resigned to our fate. If we must die, then so be it. Do not involve yourselves.”

Taz clearly did not like this but she agreed. Gath did not like it either, but he too agreed. They began to walk, stopping in the center of the clearing. A minute went by, and then two. Gath continued to stare at the tree line and see nothing.

“Where are they?” he whispered.

“They are there,” Catches No Fish whispered back.

Finally, figures began to appear one by one—long haired figures dressed in long sleeved deerskin. All were men. Their faces were expressionless as they stepped into the clearing, their numbers spread out in a line that stretched for more than fifty meters. All had their axes and knives on their belts and their bows and arrows slung over their shoulders. None held a weapon in hands, however. They held there, just staring at the four in the center of the clearing until a face familiar to Gath stepped out a little further. It was Cries Like Thunder, who, Fears No Darkness had explained earlier, would have been appointed back-up quarterback in his absence.

The quarterback and his back-up stared at each other for an indeterminate amount of time in silence. Finally, Cries Like Thunder stepped forward, closing the distance. Four of the younger warriors stepped forward as well. They continued to keep their weapons stowed.

“You have returned,” Cries Like Thunder said, his expression neutral.

“We have returned,” Fears No Darkness agreed with a nod. “We have traveled far and have seen many wonderous things on our journey, but we are now back, ready to answer for our actions and meet our fate.”

“And you brought star people to our very village?” Cries Like Thunder said. “You have been among them for nearly six moons, eating their food, intermingling with them, breathing their air. Did you think this a wise decision?”

“They present no danger to us,” Fears No Darkness told him. “They carry no disease and harbor no ill will against our people—on the contrary, they have done a great service for our people. They are our friends. More than that, really. They are our brothers.”