“It’s the price we pay for doing what we do, and it has to be on the shoulders of one individual—anything else mocks the sacrifices we ask.” He fixed the Captains with a stare. “I’ve born that weight and it’s not something I’d wish on anyone else. But the responsibility that will rest on whoever leads us into this makes anything I’ve done look laughable by comparison.”
He fell silent, looking down at the surface of the table, studying its plastic surface intently as he tried to ignore the stares of those around him. Patel and Minishimi glanced at each other, guilt and embarrassment in their eyes.
“Excuse us for a moment.” Patel stood abruptly and headed out of the chamber. With a heartbeat’s hesitation, Minishimi followed him out.
Jason didn’t look up, his ears burning, the back of his neck hot. He’d said much more than he’d intended, and he was certain he’d pissed off the Captains and probably their staffs, but what the hell? Everything was falling apart and he’d be damned if he’d stand by and watch it happen. There was too much at stake.
He owed it to Shannon.
He was so absorbed with his thoughts that he almost didn’t notice when the starship captains returned, nearly arm-in-arm. They paused in the doorway, looking at him and then briefly at each other before they came back to the table. Minishimi took her seat while Patel stood at the head of them all.
“We find ourselves in an awkward and perhaps unprecedented position,” he said. “Our decisions will affect all humanity, yet we have no appointed leader. Either Captain Minishimi or myself is the obvious choice, but we share a rank and nearly the same time in grade.” He grimaced painfully. “What we also share is a complete lack of practical experience in fighting this particular enemy. As a matter of fact, the only person here of appropriate rank with that kind of experience,” he said, his gaze settling on Jason, “is you, Captain McKay.”
“Me?” Jason felt a strange, disturbing tingle in his stomach.
“And,” Patel went on, ignoring the interruption, “since the last orders I have are to provide you with all the support necessary to aid in the effort against the Invaders…” He glanced at Minishimi, who nodded wordlessly. “Captain McKay, I’m loath to dump this kind of responsibility on someone else’s shoulders—we both are.” He gestured to his fellow starship commander. “But regulations and military procedure won’t do us any good if we lose this fight. I can’t order you to be our commanding officer, but we’d both appreciate it if you’d accept.”
Jason stared at him in disbelief, filled with a sudden and overwhelming sense of resentment. How could they do this to him after what he’d told them? How could they put him in this kind of position?
And how could he possibly say no?
He stood slowly, trying his best to bore a hole through Patel’s skull with his glare. Around him, he could hear the muttering from the starships’ staff officers, could feel their stares, sense the shaking of their heads. This wasn’t going to work. No one would follow him—they’d know he wasn’t qualified. They wouldn’t trust him, wouldn’t believe in his decisions—and why should they?
He wasn’t sure if he believed in them himself.
But from somewhere in a dark corner of his soul loomed an image of Colonel Mellanby, eyes as cold as death, smiling savagely.
“Captain Patel,” Jason said, “I’m going to need to interrogate Podbyrin again. And I need to figure out a safe way to send a wide-band message to Earth.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you’re made of.”
The viewscreen flickered, its picture grainy and unfocussed from the poor quality of the helmet cam, but gradually the image formed of an old, one-story block building surrounded by an electrified fence.
“That’s the armory outside Cleveland ’plex,” Lieutenant Leon—“Call me Kristy”—Kristopolis told Shannon, standing behind her, half-leaning on her chair. “We’d already cleaned out by then, but I left an observation team to gather what intelligence we could.”
Shannon nodded, only half-listening to the man. He’d arrived earlier in the day, brought by Corporal Lee’s friend Rhajiv Vingh along with the rest of the Service Corps platoon. She’d been worried that he’d be the stereotypical Janitor Corps officer—fat, sloppy and obsessed with paperwork—but so far he’d proved surprisingly intelligent, if somewhat garrulous. He reminded her of her college economics professor, and was near the same age. Promotions came slowly in the RSC.
On the screen, a group of Protectorate biomechs came into view, emerging from a tracked personnel carrier. A squad of them spread out around the vehicle for security while the rest poured through the main gate, left gaping open by the fleeing RSC troopers.
“There,” Kristy said, jabbing a finger at the rotating dish antenna mounted on the vehicle. “That’s what I was talking about. It’s putting out a constant signal on a narrow band. We tried to listen in and all we got was this.” He put a tape into a slot on the control board and hit the play button, and was rewarded with an ululating computer squeal.
“Probably a control signal,” Shannon guessed, stopping the tape. “They have to maintain some kind of local coordination to keep the things organized. Otherwise, they return to basic programming: kill anything in sight.”
“So they’re sort of like Marines,” Kristy muttered.
Shannon glanced back at him, laughing in spite of herself. It seemed the RSC had the same low opinion of the Marines that the jarheads had of the janitors.
“Sort of. Anyway, if we can destroy the control antenna, we can disorganize the troopers.”
“You’re the expert, ma’am,” the slim Greek officer said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know these things existed until yesterday. We’re a bit lightly armed for any action, though.” Kristopolis sighed, switching off the video replay. “All we’ve got are twenty flechette guns and a couple sidearms.” He grinned in self-deprecation. “They don’t exactly let us Janitors play with the fun toys.”
“I talked about that with Agent Klesko last night, before you and your platoon arrived.” Shannon spun her chair around to face him. “They didn’t store any weapons at this facility, but he knows of an emergency cache nearby—older stuff, but still useful.”
“Hell, I’m game, ma’am. Let’s go grab it.”
“I’m afraid it won’t be that simple, Lieutenant. First, we have to convince the Senator to approve.”
Her head snapped around at the attention tone from the communications board and Kristopolis leaned forward, checking the readout.
“It’s a wide-band message,” he told Shannon, activating the viewer. “Maybe more announcements from that loud Russian fellow.”
As the screen flashed to life, Shannon had to stifle a gasp. The face in the flickering image wasn’t Antonov, it was Jason.
“This is Captain McKay, Fleet Intelligence,” Jason intoned solemnly, “acting commander of the surviving Republic military forces.”
“I’ll be damned,” Shannon hissed, shaking her head. That lucky son of a bitch had been promoted
“You know this guy?” Kristopolis regarded her curiously.
“You could say that.”
“I’m speaking both to our citizenry and to the representatives of the Protectorate,” Jason continued, “and any of my comrades who are listening should remember this.” Shannon’s ears pricked up and her brows knit as she quickly scanned the commo board for a frequency monitor. “We of the Republic military understand the threats that have been made by General Antonov should we take any action against his forces. We wish him to be assured that we are not in the planning stages of any such attempt. Our primary concern is the safety of the President and of
