Chapter 48

In the corridor Igwanda moved directly, not to the cargo hold, but rather the lander port. The entry portal was ajar when he reached it.

"Stop there, Igwanda," came Chavez' voice as he entered. He focused on the sergeant, who had a laser drawn and pointing at him.

"What do you think you are doing, Sergeant?" said Igwanda coldly, not so much as glancing at the weapon.

"Your job, you dumb fuck," snapped Chavez. Without turning his head he called out "how soon, Dolly?"

"Almost secured, sir," came her voice from one of the landers behind Chavez.

"And what job is that, Sergeant, that it demands threatening your superior officer with a weapon?" asked Igwanda.

"'Superior officer' my left nut, Igwanda," said Chavez. "And you can quit calling me 'sergeant, ' I don't even do a good imitation of a sergeant. It's Colonel Chavez, military intelligence. And that's Captain Dzenda in there putting the finishing touches on things. She does do a good imitation of a trooper, thank God."

Igwanda could hear several sets of footsteps in the corridor outside. Chavez heard them, too. "Tell them to keep out, Igwanda," he snapped. "I'll burn the first one I see moving through that door. Nobody's mobbing up in here to rush us. Hurry it along, Dolly."

"No-one come in, on peril of your life," called Igwanda urgently. The footfalls abruptly stopped.

"What's going on, Carlos?" came Meiersdottir's voice, sparked with equal urgency.

"We're going to take care of your pets for you," sneered Chavez. He glared at Igwanda. "Colonel, you're the worst excuse for an officer I've ever met. The only damn thing you're good at is your attention for detail, I have to give you that, but otherwise you're a weak sister. Jesus, you'd betray your species just for some pussy!"

"What insanity is this?" demanded Igwanda.

"'Insanity, '" mocked Chavez. "Hell, we're the only sane ones here. We all knew back on Earth that you wouldn't be any use. All that crap about 'surveillance' and 'reconnaissance' and 'finding common ground'—with a species that killed six humans on sight! And most of the brass right with you. Then we found out why. We followed your Goddamn pacifist girlfriend to your hotel room, and then we knew we couldn't trust you." Despite his circumstances, Igwanda couldn't suppress an inner smile remembering just how far Chavez' lascivious speculation strayed from the truth of his initial confrontation with Meiersdottir; on such specious grounds are conspiracy theories founded, he thought.

"But there were some of us who weren't afraid to act," Chavez was continuing. "That's why we had to put together this damn charade. And that's why we got the nukes on board." Igwanda gave him a hard look. "Yup, that's right, nukes. Smuggled them right past your stupid nose. Enough to take out that whole damn settlement and all the bugs in it, and leave even the countryside around it hot enough to cook toast for the next few hundred years. Low-aerial setting should do it fine."

"No!" screamed Meiersdottir from the corridor.

"Amanda, stay out!" called Igwanda. "He will kill you if you show yourself."

"They left it up to me whether to use them," Chavez continued. "But when they killed van Damm—as much as I hated sergeanting, she was a damn good trooper—I was pretty sure, and then all this think-together shit came up. You asshole, give them half a chance and anything like decent weapons and they'd wipe the floor with us. I don't give a rat's ass about all that limited-range bullshit you spouted, even if you're right sooner or later there's going to be some way around that and they'll be eating breakfast on our doorstep. Dolly and I aren't going to give them that chance."

"Sgt. Chavez—" Meiersdottir's voice came through.

"Colonel, cutey-pie," Chavez cut her off.

"Col. Chavez, then, it's not bullshit, it's the speed of light; they can't function beyond a very limited area because the radio waves can't travel fast enough! Please, don't do this, it's worse than genocide, there's no word, you'd be killing an entire species—the only intelligent species we've ever met!" There were cries of agreement from the corridor.

"Bunch of fucking pussies," said Chavez, curling his lip. "Them or us, lady. I vote them and so does Dolly and we've got the only votes that count. The nuclear ones." Only he pronounced it "nucular."

"Ser— Colonel!" Meiersdottir called despairingly.

Dzenda appeared in the lander airlock. "Ready, sir," she said crisply.

"All right, Igwanda, back out and get that door closed behind you," said Chavez. "We're going out the port whether it's open or shut, but it's no part of our mission to kill humans, just bugs. So slam the door behind you nice and tight so half the ship doesn't get sucked out into vacuum. And while you're waiting for the big bangs you can think about how the oh-so-great Col. Igwanda got outmaneuvered by a fucking remf!" He gave a sneering laugh as he backed quickly into the lander and cycled the airlock closed.

Meiersdottir started to rush into the port only to be caught forcibly by Igwanda, who dragged her back out. She still struggled as he held her with one hand while toggling the portal closed—just in time, as the outside port began to open for the lander's departure. Hearing the sound, Meiersdottir stopped struggling and burst into despairing tears in his arms.

"Calm, Amanda, there are no nukes," he said softly. "There are no nukes!" he repeated loudly to the others in the corridor.

She looked up at him, tears streaking her face. "But he said—"

"He believes them to be nukes," said Igwanda. "But thermonuclear weapons require fissionable cores. The cores of these particular weapons have long since been consumed in the fire of our own sun."

"How... ? What... ?" she stammered.

Captain Ziang, far behind in the throng now mobbing the corridor, finally succeeded in pushing herself through. "Colonel, will you please clarify?" she said.

"My erstwhile sergeant said one thing correctly in his final tirade," Igwanda explained. "I am attentive to detail. Sufficiently attentive that, when I observed three crates identified only as 'military—top secret, ' and no such crates appeared on my manifest, I thought it prudent to investigate. When I discovered what they were I borrowed a radiation suit from the ship's engine room and lost a night's sleep disarming them and dispatching the cores out the ejection tubes, which you had said are aimed toward the nearest star."