Caliban’s War

“Can you hold that?” the nice voice said.

Bobbie didn’t answer; she just brought the cup to her mouth and drank the water in two greedy swallows.

“More,” she said, this time in something resembling her old voice.

She heard the sounds of someone scooting a chair and then footsteps away from her on a tile floor. Her brief look at the room had told her she was in a hospital. She could hear the electric hum of medical machines nearby, and the smells of antiseptic and urine competed for dominance. Disheartened, she realized she was the source of the urine smell. A faucet ran for a moment, and then the footsteps came toward her. The cup was put back into her hand. She sipped at it this time, letting the water stay in her mouth awhile before swallowing. It was cool and delicious.

When she was finished, the voice asked, “More?”

She shook her head.

“Maybe later,” she said. Then, after a moment: “Am I blind?”

“No. You’ve been given a combination of focus drugs and powerful amphetamines. Which means your eyes are fully dilated. Sorry, I didn’t think to lower the lights before you woke up.”

The voice was still filled with kindness and warmth. Bobbie wanted to see the face behind that voice, so she risked squinting through one eye. The light didn’t burn into her like it had before, but it was still uncomfortable. The owner of the nice voice turned out to be a very tall, thin man in a naval intelligence uniform. His face was narrow and tight, the skull beneath it pressing to get out. He gave her a frightening smile that didn’t extend past a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth.

“Gu

After several seconds, he still hadn’t continued, so Bobbie said, “Yes, sir,” then glanced at his bars and added, “Captain.”

She could open both eyes now without pain, but a strange tingling sensation was moving up her limbs, making them feel numb and shaky at the same time. She resisted an urge to fidget.

“Sergeant Draper, my name is Captain Thorsson, and I am here to debrief you. We’ve lost your entire platoon. There’s been a two-day pitched battle between the United Nations and Martian Congressional Republic forces on Ganymede. Which, at most recent tally, has resulted in over five billion MCR dollars of infrastructure damage, and the deaths of nearly three thousand military and civilian perso

He paused again, staring at her through narrowed eyes that glittered like a snake’s. Not sure what response he was looking for, Bobbie just said, “Yes, sir.”

“Sergeant Draper, why did your platoon fire on and destroy the UN military outpost at dome fourteen?”

This question was so nonsensical that Bobbie’s mind spent several seconds trying to figure out what it really meant.

“Who ordered you to commence firing, and why?”

Of course he couldn’t be asking why her people had started the fight. Didn’t he know about the monster?

“Don’t you know about the monster?”

Captain Thorsson didn’t move, but the corners of his mouth dropped into a frown, and his forehead bunched up over his nose.

“Monster,” he said, none of the warmth gone from his voice.

“Sir, some kind of monster c mutant c something attacked the UN outpost. The UN troops were ru

Thorsson frowned for a moment, then reached into one pocket and took out a small digital recorder. He turned it off, then set it on a tray next to Bobbie’s bed.

“Sergeant, I’m going to give you a second chance. Up to now, your record has been exemplary. You are a fine marine. One of our best. Would you like to start over?”

He picked up the recorder and placed a finger on the delete button while giving her a knowing look.

“You think I’m lying?” she said. The itchy feeling in her limbs resolved itself into a very real urge to reach out and snap the smug bastard’s arm off at the elbow. “We all shot at it. There will be gun camera footage from the entire platoon of this thing killing UN soldiers and then attacking us. Sir.”

Thorsson shook his hatchet-shaped head at her, narrowing his eyes until they almost disappeared.

“We have no transmissions from the platoon for the entire fight, and no uploaded data—”

“They were jamming,” Bobbie interrupted. “I lost my radio link when I got close to the monster too.”

Thorsson continued as though she had not spoken. “And all of the local hardware was lost when an orbital mirror array fell onto the dome. You were outside of the impact area, but the shock wave threw you nearly another quarter of a kilometer. It took us some time to find you.”

All of the local hardware was lost. Such a sterile way of putting it. Everyone in Bobbie’s platoon blown into shrapnel and vapor when a couple thousand tons of mirror fell out of orbit onto them. A monitor started sounding a low, chiming alert, but no one else paid it any attention, so she didn’t either.

“My suit, sir. I shot at it too. My video will still be there.”

“Yes,” Thorsson said. “We’ve examined your suit’s video log. It’s nothing but static.”

This is like a bad horror movie, she thought. The heroine who sees the monster, but no one will believe her. She imagined the second act, in which she was court-martialed in disgrace, and only got her redemption in the third act, when the monster showed up again and killed everyone who didn’t believe —

“Wait!” she said. “What decompression did you use? My suit is an older model. It uses the version 5.1 video compression. Tell the tech that, and have them try it again.”

Thorsson stared at her for a few moments, then pulled out his hand terminal and called someone.

“Have Sergeant Draper’s combat suit brought up to her room. Send a tech with video gear with it.”

He put the terminal away and then gave Bobbie another of those frightening smiles.

“Sergeant, I admit that I am extremely curious about what you want me to see. If this is still a ruse of some kind, you’ve only bought yourself a few more moments.”

Bobbie didn’t reply, but her reaction to Thorsson’s attitude had finally shifted from frightened through angry to a

She could tell from his disgusted expression that he immediately knew what she’d done, and he looked away from her smile.

The door to the room opened and a pair of Navy techs wheeled in her suit on a rack. It was intact. They hadn’t wrecked it taking her out. She felt a lump come up in her throat, and swallowed it back down. She wasn’t going to show even a moment’s weakness in front of this Thorsson clown.

The clown pointed at the senior of the two techs and said, “You. What’s your name?”

The young tech snapped off a salute and said, “Petty Officer Electrician’s Mate Singh, sir.”

“Mr. Singh, Sergeant Draper here is claiming that her suit has a different video compression than the new suits, and that’s why you were unable to read her video data. Is this correct?”

Singh slapped himself on the forehead with his palm.

“Shit. Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t think— This is the old Mark III Goliath suit. When they started making the Mark IV, they completely rewrote the firmware. Totally different video storage system. Wow, I feel pretty stupid—”