Bright light from the ion curtain poured in through the window behind Glade’s desk. It illuminated the back of his bald, parakeet-shaped skull. The light seemed to form a silvery halo behind him as he sat, silently watching me.
“You don’t think much of Sweetwater,” I said as I went back to making my sandwich.
“No, I don’t,” Glade agreed. “The little runt ran out on Terraneau.”
“Maybe he’s more cut out to be a scientist than a soldier,” I said as I selected two slices of bread.
“He better be, ’cause he’s all we have now,” Glade said. “Lieutenant, I’m not sure how much Major Burton actually knows about the last attack.”
“He said it went badly,” I said, “but he did not know any specifics.”
“Here are the specifics, Harris,” Glade said. “The armory was destroyed. All our weapons, all our ammunition—buried. The Avatari destroyed the Hotel Valhalla. Did you know that they got the Valhalla?”
“Major Burton took me by the hotel,” I said.
“They just about cleaned out the Army. Newcastle is down to about twenty thousand men. I have less than ten thousand Marines. I think the entire New Copenhagen militia was wiped out, but General Hill still has all of his pilots, for all of the good those grounded bastards do us.
“We lost it all protecting the specking scientists, then Breeze just ups and runs. Why did we listen to them?”
“We didn’t have any choice, sir,” I said.
“No, we did not.” Glade reached up and rubbed his temples, then went on. “General Newcastle wants to bring in any civilians old enough to carry a gun. There’s no point in bringing in more bodies, not with all of our guns buried under that hotel.”
“It doesn’t sound like more bodies would make much of a difference,” I agreed.
“They fought a completely different battle this time, Harris. Did Burton tell you that? Did he tell you that they attacked on two fronts?”
“There were one hundred thousand this time?” I asked.
Glade shook his head. “The same damned fifty thousand, but they attacked on two fronts. They sent half their men in from the east side of town, and we didn’t have a single platoon in place to meet them. Not a single specking platoon.
“They always came in from the west. Why did they have to pick this battle to start thinking strategies?”
He sat and thought for a moment. “Five days ago we had too many men and too many weapons, and we couldn’t decide which one we wanted to throw away first. Now look at us.”
That wasn’t exactly accurate, but I knew better than to correct the general. Five days ago we were trying to decide whether to throw men or munitions at the Avatari, but we already knew we had limited supplies of both.
“Sir, what about the rocket launchers?” I asked. “Wasn’t the Army constructing them around campus?”
“Completed,” Glade said, sounding more miserable and frustrated than ever. “The only problem is that we left the damned rockets in the armory for safekeeping.”
Glade leaned back in his chair. The chair looked comfortable, but the general clearly took no comfort from it. “Do you know where that leaves us, Harris? That leaves us so far up shit creek we’re practically to the kidneys.”
Glade droned on about the battle, but I paid little attention. I felt like someone had drilled a hole in my head and poured thick oil into my brains. Thoughts came slowly. The world was coming to an end, and all I could do was hang on for the ride. I finished my sandwich in three bites.
Someone rapped at the door.
“Come in,” Glade barked.
“Jim, we better get going to the lab; the dwarf is waiting on us.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about the briefing.” Glade laughed. “We don’t want to miss out on the latest bad news.”
General Haight turned toward me and paused. “I heard you sat the last fight out, son.”
“I got thrown in the brig,” I said, still trying to figure out who “Jim” was. Moments passed before I realized that Jim was commanding-officer-talk for General James Ptolemeus Glade.
“I heard that, too,” he said. “A firing squad would be too good for the bonehead who took you off the line.”
I did not say anything though I felt the same way.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The war did not reach the hallowed steps of the Science Laboratory. Not a window was cracked, not a doorpost was nicked. Not so much as a blade of grass looked out of place on the lawn. The only bombardment this building had seen came from the flocks of pigeons that gathered along its ledge.
I stepped into the lab and saw a janitor mopping the floor. In a city littered with dead soldiers, a city in which most of the skyscrapers now lay in ruins, here stood a man in blue canvas coveralls swinging a mop back and forth over the gleaming white floor. After everything I had seen over the last two weeks, this simple janitor looked more alien to me than the Avatari.
The floor was wet and shiny. Reflections of the fluorescent light fixtures showed in the water. I stopped to stare at that janitor for just a moment. He looked up at me and gave me a nervous smile, then one of General Glade’s officers asked, “You coming?” and we moved on toward the lab.
Military high command was and always will be a club for overaged boys. As officers are known to do, some of the ones leading this campaign came up with childish epithets for Arthur Breeze and William Sweetwater after that first briefing. The names that caught on were “the Cadaver” and “the Dwarf.” I once heard Newcastle make a joke about them having a “lesbian affair.” By now, however, the joking had stopped.
The generals walked through the lobby in silence. They did not speak to each other. They did not speak to their aides. They walked up the steps, taking one stair at a time, heads down and faces devoid of emotion. They did not look defeated, but they did not look proud. Gone were the days of boasting and haughtiness.
We filed into the lab and formed our familiar circle. Ninety-five percent of the fighting men had died, but the ring of generals remained intact. Sweetwater sat waiting for us, looking agitated as he fiddled with some odd contraptions.
“I suppose we should get started,” Sweetwater said, looking around the circle. “We might as well begin with the good news.”
“Good news?” Newcastle repeated. He did not wear his former smirk. “There’s good news?”
Sweetwater pressed a button on a portable communications console and played a recording of an audio signal. It was weak and filled with static. Then came a human voice. “This is Valhalla Station. Come in. Repeat, this is Valhalla Station. Come in.”
The crackle of the static grew louder, then …“Valhalla Station, this is UAN
“What was that?” Newcastle asked.
“We were able to make a hole in the ion curtain,” Sweetwater said. He had always struck me as brilliant and arrogant, maybe a man with a chip on his shoulder. Without Breeze around, he seemed awkward. He fumbled for words and answered questions in sentences instead of paragraphs.
“There are ships out there?” General Hill asked.
“During the moment that we penetrated the curtain, we detected six battleships orbiting the planet.”
“Do we know if the Avatari have attacked Earth?” General Glade asked.
Sweetwater shook his head. “You just heard everything we have.”
“That’s it?” Newcastle asked. He shook his head, the disappointment showing on his face. “That is the good news—that you located six battleships orbiting the planet? They can’t send down reinforcements, you weren’t able
