Requiem

[Jane Hartman]

Herbert Beeler Naval Hospital, City of Medford, Los Angeles

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+153 Days Since Planetfall.

”We’ll finish with the basics, ma’am.” The doctor didn’t look like a naval officer. He wore his black hair shaggy, complete with sideburns that would never pass an inspection. Instead of a uniform, he wore a red and grey chequered shirt, complete with pinstripe tie and name tag identifying him as Ray. The end result was enough to make Hartman’s head spin. She focused on the wall behind him instead. ”Can you please tell me your name, rank, and serial number?”

”Is this really necessary?” Hartman hated how slurred her voice sounded. Like a drunk, lying twitching in the gutter. ”Someone’s already asked me today.”

That got her a note. The doctor glanced down at his datapad, fingers dancing across the surface. Patient remains uncooperative, no doubt. Hartman was trying to cooperate, but damned if her patience didn’t have limits. The doctor’s gaze was sympathetic. Hartman hated him for it. ”The last time I spoke to you was last week, ma’am. Four days ago. Do you remember the vision tests?”

”Yes. Sorry, I remember.” Hartman nodded, smiled as if it were nothing, and didn’t remember a thing. She couldn’t remember seeing this man before today in her life, but she was very quickly learning that her memory, like her body, couldn’t be trusted with even the most routine tasks. It had taken her twenty minutes to sit up that morning. ”With the charts?” She guessed.

”Yes, ma’am. With the charts.” There was a moment’s silence before the doctor prompted her again. ”Your name, rank, and serial number, ma’am?”

”It’s service number, not serial number.” Funny, the details she could remember.

”Even so, ma’am.” The doctor said.

”Admiral Hartman, NF dash four oh three one nine eight.” Hartman recited. Whose idea had it been to hire civilians to staff a naval hospital? ”Do you want my flight school results too?”

The doctor jotted down another note. ”Your full name please, ma’am.”

”Hah.” Hartman snorted. The whole charade was ridiculous. She was a flag officer, and apparently the best thing they had to do was put her in a bed and throw questions at her that a two year old would have laughed out of the room. She opened her mouth to speak, and only then realised that her mind was as blank as slate. Her name had been there. She knew her name, for Christ’s sake. But when she tried to call it up she drew nothing but emptiness. ”I’m -. My name is -”

The doctor sat, that damnable sympathy in his eyes, and made another note.

Hartman swore, balled her fists beneath the blanket. It shouldn’t have been like that. Her mind shouldn’t just be empty all of a sudden. She knew her own name.

”Jane.” The doctor said softly, glanced up at a noise from the door. ”Your name is Jane Eliza Hartman. We’ll leave it there for today, I can see you’ve got a guest.”

The doctor stood, tugged the creases out of his shirt, tucked the room’s one plastic chair back into the corner, and stepped towards the door.

”Wait.” Hartman interrupted. The doctor paused halfway to the door. ”When can I go back?”

”Back where?” The doctor asked, half-smile on his face as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

”You know where I mean. Back on duty. Back with the fleet.”

”Back on duty?” The doctor glanced down at his datapad, avoided her eyes. ”It’s still early days, ma’am, and your injuries were, are, significant. Hard to say if you can go back.”

”I’m going back.” Hartman stated, iron in her voice.

”Yes ma’am.” The doctor didn’t sound convinced. ”Yes, I’m sure you are.”

The checkered shirt left the room. Hartman watched him go.

*

High Planetary Orbit, Leeds System

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+6 Days Since Planetfall.

The warm air blowing through Glenbrook’s vents still carried the acidic smell of overheated equipment and cut metal. Footsteps reverberated through the hull of the troopship, the steady, crisp beats of the ship’s crew mingling with the staggering footfalls of the walking wounded. Somewhere, Hartman heard a scream, trailing off to an anguished sob that hung in the air for the space of a heartbeat before the wounded sailor lapsed into silence.

She flicked on the bathroom tap, splashed her face, and tried to wipe the exhaustion from her eyes. Dark rings hung under her eyes, lending her face the same mottled pattern as her grey and white BDUs. If nothing else, at least it was consistent. Regimental. Admiral’s stars rested on her collar, metal bright against the fabric. They still felt like they belonged to someone else, to some other scar-faced woman in the mirror. An infantrywoman’s instinctive fear of brass got damn disconcerting when you were the brass. A shudder ran through the ship, metal and composite panels groaning in unison with the thrusters. Hartman ignored it. After a day of intermittent maneuvers, it was just more background noise.

Propped up next to the sink, her datapad blinked at her. Hartman cut off the flow of water, wiped the moisture from her face, and answered it. The screen filled with the image of a frazzled-looking serviceman, the harsh lighting of the CiC silhouetting him like a halo. ”Admiral Hartman. You asked to be informed when the last of the Woodmoor survivors were transferred.”

”Thank you.” Hartman gave a curt nod. Until two days ago, Woodmoor had been a siege cruiser attached to Davie’s First Fleet. The cruiser had strayed too far from its assigned orbit and drifted into range of a gallic ground-to-space battery. Since then it had been nothing more than a few hundred thousand tonnes of scrap metal trapped in a decaying orbit. Damage control efforts by the crew had been called off when the ship’s life support failed, and the Tenth Fleet had been called in to handle the evacuation. Seemed to be all she was doing now. Coming in after the battle to clean up the mess. Hartman didn’t feel like a commander in the largest fleet in modern history. She felt like a janitor with a troopship instead of a broom. ”Tell the Captain I’ll be in the CiC in five.”

”Aye aye, ma’am.” The CiC cut the connection. Hartman straightened her uniform, squared her shoulders, and stepped into the ship’s hallways.

Glendale’s passages were scattered with a handful of enlisted personnel officers. More than the troopship had seen since deploying its marine contingent, but still far from enough to make the big ship seem full, or even properly inhabited. The members of Woodmoor’s crew that hadn’t merited an infirmary visit would be below decks, slowly seeping into the marine’s abandoned quarters. Sailors stepped aside as she passed, mentally counting the hatchways to the bridge.

Before the war Glendale had been a merchant hauler and, despite the Navy’s hasty modifications, the ship still felt more civilian than military. Railings and handholds, essential for a transport not willing to splash out the credits on artificial gravity, lined the walls and ceiling and retracted handholds clicked on the floor beneath her boots. The military retrofit had left them in, just in case, but had covered everything with a flexible gray and light-blue foam to prevent them killing anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the hallways during maneuvering. Windows, a luxury unique to civilian craft, had been ripped out and armored over. Hartman was grateful for that. It might have been an illusion, but it made the ship feel just a little more secure. Unless they had the luck of the damned, Glendale’s crew only saw vacuum through the ship’s displays.

Nothing more than a converted cargo compartment close to the centre of the ship, the CiC was the same chaotic mix of hardware. Civilian damage-control consoles that were old before Hartman was born sat alongside cutting-edge fire control banks and sensor arrays. Acceleration chairs sat bolted on long rails securing them to the floor. Uniformed enlisted and officers alike sat strapped to their chairs, typing at their displays, tossing commands and acknowledgements back and forth across the room. If not for the exposed ducts creeping across the walls and ceiling like insidious steel vines, Hartman could have been aboard any warship in the fleet.

Michael Ellis, Glendale’s Commanding Officer, was deep in conversation with a marine Lieutenant, both pausing now and then to glance toward the datapad in Ellis’ hand. Razor-thin and clean-shaven, with wide eyes that made him look perpetually shocked, Ellis looked like someone had taken a teenager and stretched him until he fitted into his uniform. Hartman nodded to Ellis and called up her display, fixed to the observer’s seat. ”When you’re done, Lieutenant Commander.”

Ships flashed into position on her screen, Tenth Fleet in blue, the remainder of the Libertonian fleet in green, and the Gallic fleet, biding their time out beyond Leed’s orbit, in red. Glendale sat among a cluster of three other ships, literally within spitting distance. Woodmoor, the crippled siege cruiser was alongside, fixed to the troopship by a pair of airlocks, and held secure by the two Hercules-class heavy lifters assigned to the fleet. It was the intermittent bursts of their engines that sent shudders through both larger ships.

The rest of the 10th hung in geostationary clusters over contested areas of the planet. Bison-class landers and gunboats hung over their respective landing zones, watching for any munitions lobbed at their troops from out beyond orbit. Cloverfield; however, dominated approaches to the Liberty-occupied segments of the planet, the dreadnought floating above the landing zones like a small, heavily-armed moon. Occasionally, her display marked a new course as the warship flung a round down the gravity well to smash some hostile installation, or knock out a tank identified by troops on the ground.

Sophisticated as Cloverfield’s sensors were, the perpetual smog that shrouded Leeds blinded them as surely as any human. Like the rest of the fleet, Cloverfield was utterly dependent on the marines for target acquisition. A few billion credits of hardware reduced to utter insignificance by a cloud. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been her people dying down there. Further afield Brighton, a militarised refinery ship, skimmed the cloud around the Magellan jumphole for raw materials to keep the fleet moving, fighter escort nothing more than an icon on her display.

”Ma’am.” Ellis raised a hand in salute, still red-faced from his discussion with the marine. Hartman returned it. The junior officer shook his head, raked a hand across his forehead. ”Woodmoor’s CO has been asking when he can expect a new command. He’s sending my marines up now to ask on his behalf.”

”What did you tell him?” Hartman asked.

”That he can take it up with fleet command, ma’am.” Ellis shrugged, glanced guiltily at the stars on her collar. ”Sorry.”

”So I should expect a visit from an irate siege cruiser commander? I’ll pencil him in for next Thursday.” Hartman turned back toward the display, made a mental note to pull up the name of Woodmore’s CO. She tried, and failed, to grasp the colossal arrogance required to ask for a new command less than an hour after being dragged from the wreck of your former one. ”How long until we push away?”

”Seabees are shutting down the reactor now. We should be okay to go in twenty minutes.” Ellis said. ”We’ve got an extra ninety eight hands aboard, but it’s nothing compared to the marines we had on the way over. I’ve got a few people raiding Woodmore’s supply bunkers to top us off, but even without that we’ve got more than enough to handle the numbers.”

”I’ll contact the Fleet Admiral, see about reassigning them. They shouldn’t be your problem for too long, Lieutenant Commander.” Hartman exhaled, tapped her screen, and called up another report. ”Woodmore had a hundred and twelve on records. How many dead have we retrieved?”

Ellis shifted a little. He tried to pretend otherwise, but Hartman knew it was his first command. Ships weren’t the only ones the Navy was throwing, untested, into combat. The concept of deaths in combat was still a new one to him. It fitted her like an old coat. Hartman wasn’t sure which of them that reflected better on. ”Nine fatalities, ma’am. They’re strapped down in the number four hold.”

”Depressurised?” Glendale and her escorts were a long way from home, and the campaign was a long way from finished. The last thing Hartman needed was disease spreading through the ship. Cold, perhaps, but infinitely preferable to losing a dozen crewmen to illness. If one person got sick in the cramped confines of a starship everyone got sick.

”Yes ma’am.” Ellis nodded.

”Let me know when medical gets them ID’d.” Hartman paused, considered. ”Disregard that. I’ll reassign that report.” Woodmore’s commanding officer could tell her the names of the dead. Best case scenario, it gave him some time to think on what command meant. Worst case, it kept him out of her hair a little while longer. ”Advise the crew that we’re pushing away in half an hour. Northview’s due to -”

”Admiral, Brighton’s escorts are reporting contact.” The comms watch reported, a trace of panic in her voice. ”Gallic bomber wing, ma’am.”

”How far out are they?” Hartman called up the ship’s sensor data, was rewarded with a handful of flickering red dots encircling Brighton and her escorts. The big refinery ship drifted through a field of red, the blue of her own fighters dancing around over and around the crimson. The gallic signatures shifted and turned as she watched, changing position from one second to the next, far beyond the agility any craft that small should have had. Stealth ships.

”Comm delay’s twenty minutes, ma’am.” There was fear in her voice.

Hartman forced herself to breathe, to release her hands from the display controls. What she was watching had already happened twenty minutes ago. The light from the attack only now reaching the rest of the fleet. Whatever was going to happen to Brighton had already happened. Forty minutes delay between sending a message to the assailed group and getting a response. There was no order she could send that wouldn’t arrive so late it was meaningless, if there was even anyone left to receive it. Frustration curled in her stomach, and Hartman fought down the sudden urge to hit the display. The fighter escort was intended to head off hostiles before they closed to engagement range, give the auxiliary a chance to power its shield and engines, not fight a battle right on top of the ship they were supposed to be escorting. Cloaks changed all the normal rules.

”Holy shi-.” The servicewoman quickly corrected herself. ”We’ve got two fast movers.”

A pair of new courses flashed into existence on her screen, torpedoes streaking their way away across the intervening space towards Brighton. The ships that launched them might be messing with Glendale’s sensors, but the plasma trails of the torpedoes glowed on her screen like tiny suns. Hartman gritted her teeth and watched the screen, waiting for the retaliatory flash of Brighton’s guns.

Nothing. The auxiliary didn’t even fire its thrusters. There was no reassuring flicker of blue on her display, no power spike as the weapons armed. Then, with all the shocking finality of a guillotine dropping, the auxiliary’s shields dropped. Not faded, not shot, not burnt out. Just dropped, like someone flicking a switch.

The first torpedo smacked into the unshielded hull, then the second, and the ship vanished from her sensors in a sea of radiation. If Glendale had windows, she would have been able to see the flash.

”They got Brighton, ma’am.” The comms watch didn’t sound afraid any more. Just stunned. Hartman could sympathise. The whole engagement, from the moment the ships appeared to the instant the torpedoes impacted, couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds. Brighton’s fighter escort was chasing down the bombers, harassing them, but the Gauls were steadily pulling away.

Glendale’s CiC was silent. Uncertain faces glanced up from their displays, looked at Hartman. Waiting for orders. Hartman exhaled. What orders did you give, when the enemy came and went like a predator in the night, took one of your ships from a field that should have been beyond their reach?

”Contact the other auxiliaries, tell them I want them and their escorts back in orbit with the rest of the fleet as soon as possible.” Hartman said. ”Brighton’s escorts are to stay with the bombers as long as they can, prevent them from cloaking and going after the fleet again.”

”We’re retreating, ma’am?” Ellis sounded like she’d just suggested he load himself into a torpedo tube and launch at the Gallics.

”We’ve got enough raw materials between the other auxiliaries and Glendale to last us for now.” Hartman shot the troopship’s CO a look that could have pierced armor plating. Enough expendables and materials to handle one or two fleet engagements, enough to manufacture ammunition for the fleet. As long as she didn’t lose any more refineries. ”We’re not risking the other two auxiliaries until we know what we’re dealing with here. In the meantime, I want a copy of that engagement log sent down to intelligence and one to my datapad.”

”Aye aye, ma’am. Er-.” The comms watch paused, frowned at her screen, and tapped the outline of Brighton’s escorts. ”Hostile bombers have broken contact. Looks like they cloaked again. 6 Flight’s reporting three of their ships damaged and one hostile kill.”

”Can they make it back?” Hartman asked.

”They didn’t say they couldn’t, ma’am. Those bombers were slinging a lot of EMP around, so it’s probably computer malfunction.” Comms’ display beeped, a second message. ”Correction, ma’am. That wasn’t a hostile kill. 6 Flight’s reporting one Gaul pod recovered.”

A captive. Hartman allowed herself a thin smile. Perhaps there was some justice in the world.

”Belay that last order. 22 Wing’s to rendezvous with 6 Flight and make sure they get back in one piece. Fighters are to sweep Brighton for survivors on the way back through, if they haven’t already.” 22 Wing were one of a handful of gunboat squadrons assigned to Hartman’s command. Short of sending out a siege cruiser or pulling Cloverfield out of orbit, the Defiants were the heaviest combatants in the 10th. ”Then I want that prisoner transferred to Glendale’s intelligence section. Perhaps they’ll have some answers for us.”

*

Herbert Beeler Naval Hospital, City of Medford, Los Angeles

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+153 Days Since Planetfall.

Reginald Lewis sighed and leaned back in his chair. The plastic alloy did not yield, so the movement was not comfortable. He was visiting Jane again, it had become a ritual. He’d taken up lodgings at Fort McCreary on the planet as well. On most days, he’d spend a few hours sitting by her bedside. Most days, she was too weak to talk, so Lewis kept her updated on the goings-on in the Navy. He carefully steered clear of news that’d upset her, such as the loss of San Diego Border Control to the Gallic counter-offensive, and how all their efforts had basically amounted to little.

Today, things seemed to be different. He’d found Jane agitated for some reason that she would not tell, and after a few minutes of silence, began recounting the events that had led them here. Lewis thought about changing the topic, but something told him she needed to get it off her chest. So he sat, and listened. It clearly took a lot out of her, her voice was croaky and a far cry from the firm tone that she’d used both on-duty and off duty.

Her recollections were spotty, but unblemished and to the point. Being on the ground during the Leeds Offensive, all of this was news to him. Brighton’s destruction and the situation surrounding it raised all sorts of alarm bells in his head, but this was hardly the place for a tactical reanalysis. Instead, he nodded and waited.


”I should’ve seen it then.” Hartman croaked. ”But I was too focused on the small-picture stuff. Woodmore wasn’t the first ship we lost. Mount Rainer got hit by three Valors on the day of the landings. Wasn’t much left for us to clean up.”

Eventually, she seemed to drift back to the present, dragged her mind away from wrecked starships. ”Thanks for visiting, Lewis. I know you’ve got better things to do then wait around listening to me. How’s the Fleet?”

”The best thing I can do right now is be here. No arguments on that point.” He paused, thinking about what news to tell her. ”We’re holding up. A bit battered and sore, perhaps...but we aren’t down for the count yet.”

Lewis smiled faintly, remembering something. ”Mehndi nearly got court-martialed.”

A frown creased Hartman’s forehead. ”Who’s Mehndi again?”

Lewis sighed. ”Never mind. Tell me, how’re you feeling?”

”Honestly?” Hartman shrugged, her right shoulder barely moving. ”Not a whole lot. The doctors are saying that most of the physical damage had time to heal while… While I was asleep. They’re saying it’s all connections now. Like replacing a disk. They repaired most of the wiring but the data’s still gone. I’m pretty much learning to use this side again.” She jerked her head to her right. ”I’ve bullied them into letting me try walk in a week. All in all, I’ve had worse. Not by much, though. What about you? Someone mentioned you spent some time in here too.”

Lewis nodded slowly. ”The..thing we fought, it didn’t let me off lightly either. Thankfully, the armor suit is tough...I got lucky, really. Not much more to be said about it.”

”You’re good at your job, Lewis. Don’t go pilin’ it all on the hardware.” Hartman yawned. ”Sorry. Don’t have a pencil and paper, do you?”

Lewis raised an eyebrow. ”Don’t have any on me, but I could get ‘em. What do you need it for?”

”You’re a great officer, Lewis, but you’d make a crap Sergeant. Didn’t you ever get ‘a good NCO always carries a pen?’” Hartman gave a thin smile. ”I’d like to write down what happens here. Keep track of things. Feel like it’d help.”

Lewis smiled. ”We have datapads now. Sure, I’ll get those. Anything else you need?”

”I guess a line posting isn't on the list?” Hartman asked.

”Not in the near future, no,” Lewis replied. ”You’ve earned the rest anyways, lady. Stay put so I can have one less thing to worry about.”

”You think I don’t worry about who’s watching your ass out there?” Hartman glanced back at the window. ”I know. I just hating lying here, watching it all happening. I read Lambert’s report. You’re going to need people out there who know what they’re doing.”

”So be it.” Lewis said firmly. ”Until you’re well again, I won’t hear any talk of you worrying about us.” He smiled faintly. ”And once you’re good to go, I’ll bust you out of here even if I need a SEAL team to do it. You have a promise to keep.”

”And I thought you’d forgotten.” Hartman gave a genuine smile. ”I’ll hold you to that.”

”Besides, it just doesn’t feel right without a pair of eyes boring into my ass.” Lewis got up and patted her hand. ”I’ll be back soon. Take care.”

”You too.” Hartman watched him go. Lewis limped a little as he walked, favouring one side. Hartman wasn’t watching the limp.

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