COMMANDER

“To the residents of the ship behind the third planet, we proclaim our welcome to this star system which we call Hylea. We call our planet Hanos. We look forward to a peaceful greeting.”

The broadcast went on, then, to other subjects.

The Ready Room was silent for a long moment when the doctor said, “Gods Above!”

At the same time, Dotes was saying, “At least the names have not changed.”

“How the hell did they see us out here and the Shaquaree did not?” demanded a Navy weapons officer to no one in particular.

“Well, Commander Rawlings,” Captain Lewellyn said calmly to me, “it appears we have a decision to make. Shall we take up the proffered invitation and meet with these people?”

“I really don’t see why we should not, Captain,” I responded. “They obviously already know we are out here. The question is, how shall we meet them? What stance should we take?”

The captain nodded. “XO, I make our travel time to orbit under engine power about twelve hours. Do you concur?”

“Yes, Captain. We could be ready to shuttle in twelve hours.”

Lewellyn regarded me. “Can you have your Marines ready in that time, Commander?”

I nodded. “We can be ready for however you and I decide to deploy, Captain.”

“Very good. XO, have Communications prepare a reply message for broadcast on their EM frequencies and present it for my review as soon as possible. Also, have the bridge duty officer report to the Ready Room immediately. Once those two items are accomplished, please go to your sensors group and see what you can do to squeeze out a little more information than we have now. Commander Rawlings, please remain here so we can plan our stance for meeting the, ah, Hanosians.”

The captain and I devised several strategic plans to cover what we thought might be the most likely scenarios acceptable to both parties, to provide both safety and reassurance for both sides as we began to learn of one another. The strategic plans my lieutenants had created were quite useful as a base, and the captain complimented their thoroughness. After our experience with the Shaquaree, who could blame us for being a little reticent? Yet, there was no solid evidence the Hanosians were anything but what they appeared to be; peaceful, benign, practical, and well-adjusted.

Fourteen hours later, the Rontar was in geosynchronous orbit above the site chosen for the initial meeting. We spent the travel time focusing detailed sensor sweeps of the inner three planets looking for anything hidden away to be used as a weapon against a spaceship. We found nothing.

Far out into the central area of the primary continent in a non-populated area of windswept plain was a large, flat-topped plateau of sand and coarse gravel with little but sparse grasses for vegetation. Visibility was clear for several klicks in all directions. It was agreed I would take a small contingent of troopers down first to set up a portable hut and prep it for the meeting. Then my group would back off and saddle up, ready to depart in an instant. Once ready, the Hanosians would fly in via helicopters and inspect the hut as thoroughly as they liked.

When their security cleared the site, we would meet with a deputy minister of the government, and begin working toward a meeting of their prime minister and our captain and myself in a multi-step process. Each side would have the opportunity to inspect, review, and approve at each step.

Team Zulu was suited and waiting beside our AV as I stripped and climbed into my suit. With a chuckle, I noticed someone had painted a really nice rendition of a Zulu warrior’s shield and short spear on both sides of the AV. Nice! Non-regulation, for sure, if I “officially” noticed it, but I didn’t.

The gel-skin felt slick and cool initially but warmed quickly with contact. I sealed the suit and pressurized as I leaned my head back into the new helmet slightly and felt contact with the neural probes and the connections snapped into place behind my ears. At once I felt the presence of the AI in my mind as the HUD flashed to life and presented me with a view of the team and the AV.

I stretched and wiggled to settle my body into the gel-skin and the AI notified me of satisfactory systems checks for life support, mobility, shields, and armaments. I was ready. I walked to the AV and gave the team a thumbs up.

“Mount up!” I said through the suit comm.

Flyboy hit the pilot seat and touched the grav controls and the AV lifted ten centimeters from the deck and hung there as the team entered the vehicle and took their assigned places. Dog was in the gunner’s seat, touching switches and prepping the AV’s weapons as the rest of us took our positions and clamped in. As Flyboy moved us to the hangar bay and then out into space, my mind drifted back to the last moment I had been in my office after changing into BBDs.

“Sir,” Lt. Jenkins said as he stuck his head in my door, “Gunnery Sergeant Flynn is here and asking to see you, sir.”

“Flynn?” I wondered what he wanted this time. “Send him in, LT.”

Flynn entered and stood at attention. He had something long and covered by a cloth in his hands.

“Sir! Gunnery Sergeant Flynn reporting, sir!”

“What can I do for you, Blademaster?”

“Sir! Might we speak freely, sir?”

Aw, crap. What now?

“Free speech, Gunny. At ease.”

Flynn relaxed a little but still stood tall. I noticed a large bruise of fading blue and purple on his neck.

“Commander, I wanted to, um . . . well, to thank you, sir. No one has had the balls to speak to me the way you did for some time now . . . and I needed it. I had become a piece of shit and you told me the truth . . . and then let me pay my debt to the clan. I came here for two things, sir. First, to let you know Trooper Donner finally did kick my ass.”

He pointed to the bruise on his neck and grinned a little sheepishly.

“You can be proud of her, sir. After you and I had our ‘get your shit straight’ meeting, I actually began teaching again . . . caring, really caring about what my students were learning. Carla was the best, sir. I began to see she wasn’t trying to beat me, she was trying to be the best damn bladesman she could become. Truth be told, if a little payback came with it . . . well, she’d be OK with that, too. A couple of days ago, she beat me, fair and square. First time I’ve been beat in nearly ten years, sir.”

“When was that exactly, Mr. Flynn?”

“Um . . . actually, three days ago, at about 1600.”

This was shortly after Donner had gone up to see the Doc for the new nanos, and well before they would have had any noticeable effect. Hoo-rah!

“Go on.”

“Well, sir, when she whacked me and I went down, she froze for a moment with her eyes wide like she couldn’t believe what just happened. Then, when I got back up, she just looked at me, and . . . well, sir . . . it was . . . um . . . well . . . it was a very emotional moment for both of us, sir. I don’t mind saying it was one of the most happy and proud moments of my life.”

His eyes were now glistening with the memory and the telling. He cleared his throat a couple of times. I could tell he wasn’t finished, so I waited patiently.

“Anyways, sir, all that was because of what you done . . . your leadership for both her and for me . . . and for the whole clan, sir. For all you have done for me, and for us, I made you this, sir.”

He held out the object he had been holding, horizontally at arm’s length in front of his chest like a formal presentation. I stepped around my desk and carefully unwrapped the fabric to reveal a beautiful new katana sword. With a ceremonial bow, I accepted the sword from his grasp as he bowed back to me.

The grip wrappings were red, purple, and dark brown silk threads, braided and woven tightly in intricate patterns. The casement looked like polished red cherry wood and gleamed brightly. I pulled the blade twenty centimeters from the casement and it shone like pure silver.

I pulled it completely free and examined it closely, giving it the attention that it, and Flynn, deserved. It was bigger and slightly longer than most, thicker at the blade and the grip, with a hilt guard which looked like gold. It was lighter than I expected for its size, although still of respectable weight, and it settled into my hands as though it had been waiting for my touch. It was an amazing feeling. I noticed a small stud on the back end of the pommel in the middle of the Eagle, Planet, and Anchor Marine insignia and glanced at Flynn. He was grinning like an imp and nodded at me.

“It’s a power blade, sir,” Flynn said calmly.

My eyes flew open in astonishment. “How did you get the power cell to fit . . .?”

“I worked with some of the squid engineers, sir. They got some pretty smart people over there.”

I flicked the stud to turn it on and off. Then I stepped out into the open office lobby to take a couple of swings with it. The katana felt like it was part of my arm, moving and sweeping like it was almost alive. The balance was perfect. Carla had been correct. This was a work of art!

I touched the blade gently to my forearm to draw the requisite bead of blood, cleaned the blade on my BBD, and then snicked it back snugly into the casement. I bowed deeply to Sergeant Flynn without a word. Actually, I didn’t think I could speak over the lump in my throat.

Flynn bowed back to me, even deeper. Then, he snapped to Attention and saluted. I returned it and he about-faced and marched out of the office. When I joined the team near the AV, they were all in various stages of climbing into their suits and preparing weapons. Some were nude, some were wearing the thin, skintight bodysuit made for wearing between their own skin and the gel-skin of the suit. I had the new katana in my hands.

Trooper Donner, nude and glistening with a slight sweat, turned to face me with a joyous smile when she saw me with the katana. Some of the others joined us as well.

“Oh! He gave it to you, Commander!” Donner gushed happily. “He’s been working on it for weeks now.” Her smile became a little wry. “He thought no one knew but we could tell he was working on something special. We finally figured it out.”

“Yeah, it was special, alright,” Trooper Ben LaSalle, aka Star, added. “We caught Gunny Flynn watching you all sneaky and intent in the mess hall.”

“And in practice sessions,” added Trooper Jon Gold, aka Stitch. “He seemed to be studying you, and it kind of made us wonder.”

“Then Wheels saw him sneaking off,” Trooper Judy Bulo, aka Mouse, said, “and later we, uh, kinda, er, got a peek into his workroom. She said he spent most of his off time there working on this one sword.”

“I got to know his girlfriend a little bit, the Navy girl,” put in Trooper Jeff Denby, aka CanMan, “and she says he was driven . . . that this would be the most perfect thing he ever made. He was watching you, studying your moves, your size, your weight and balance.”

I turned to Jeff. “CanMan, we got any useless suits around? Anything that can be ruined without being missed?”

He grinned like an imp. “No full suit, sir, but we have a couple of pieces . . . arms and a torso we were going to put into recycling anyway. C’mon, guys, help me.”

Between several of them, they wrestled the pieces to the deck and set them up as a makeshift dummy. I pulled the katana from the polished red wood casement to “Oohs” and “Aahs.” I then struck a fighting stance and did some warm-up moves, the silver blade flashing and streaking as my muscles loosened. Within a few moves of the first kata, it seemed as though I had become someone or something else. I felt more graceful than I ever remember, more fluid, more balanced, and . . . I don’t even know how to describe the feeling which overcame me. What I was doing, though, and how I was doing it was just somehow totally right and correct. The sword and I were one, and I could feel it!

As I whirled and flew, leaping and twisting and striking at invisible foes, I suddenly spun toward the suit dummy and swung twice, rapid, perfect strokes, and in less than a second the dummy fell apart in three pieces. The power-blade struck the armor and sliced cleanly and neatly through some of the toughest armor ever produced by mankind.

I landed in a finale stance, on one knee, bent at the waist parallel with the deck, and with arms spread and the oversized katana extending from my right hand like the very blade of Death. I stood and drew a deep cleansing breath, like I had forgotten to breathe during the exercise, then blooded the blade, cleaned it, and seated it back into the casement with a tiny “snick” sound. The team stood still, wide-eyed and silent until finally Trooper Linda Vickers, aka Spear, spoke and broke the spell.

“Gods Above,” she stated quietly, reverently, “that was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

“Holy shit, sir!” Trooper Louise Carson, aka Boomer, cried out. “That was freakin’ awesome!”

“Fuuuck . . . Meee!” breathed Donner reverently. “Flynn keeps saying when you get the right sword in your hand magic happens.”

“Wrong thing to say just now, Donner,” I kidded her. “I mean, I’ve heard the part about the right sword and magic before . . . but . . . that first part?”

She just looked at me blankly.

I glanced pointedly at her nudity while lifting an eyebrow and allowing a small smile to touch my face before I turned and walked away to the AV. After Flynn’s visit and gift, and on the walk from my offices to the AV launch, I had decided that perhaps I’d been the hard-ass commander long enough with this team. I’d set the bar and expectations, now, it was time to be part of the team.

The rest of the team howled with laughter as Donner looked around in confusion until it dawned on her and her face reddened. Then a half-smile appeared briefly on her face before she growled, “Very funny. Okay, the boss got me. Now mount up, you space turds!”

“Atmosphere in thirty,” yelled out Flyboy through the suit comms.

“When we hit the ground, power up every weapon we have, Dog,” I said to Bolton. “Let ’em know we’re ready for anything.”

“Sir!” Dog acknowledged.

“Wheels, as soon as we’re down, take over from Flyboy and convert to the treads.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Everybody, weapons check before we exit the AV!”

A gabble of confirmations came back to me. It was several more minutes before we were dirtside, and we performed our final equipment checks on the way down. In our line, I checked over Mouse while Donner checked my suit and gear. I felt her jerk on the katana and power lance where they were mounted in designed sockets to be sure they were snug and firm.

“Right ’n tight, sir!” she called, nearly at the same time I spoke the same words to Mouse.

Shortly, the AV settled onto the gravel and grass of the plain and immediately we were running out the airlock hatch and into the bright sunshine. We lined up around the AV in a circular perimeter defense and tuned all suit sensors to probe our surroundings.

“Alright, team,” I said, “no more suit comms. Use the transceivers.”

I watched and listened to the AI as it ran through sensor checks. I knew when it was finished and what the results were through our connection at the neural ports.

“Clear!” I called.

A chorus of “Clear” responses came back to me. Both the Rontar and the AV sensors had swept the landing area prior to and during the descent and landing but this was protocol, redundant sweeps with every sensor available. Marines have learned the hard way to never trust sensor scans 100 percent.

The plateau plain stretched out before us in all directions, empty. The wind stirred occasional dust devils here and there. No other sounds came to us except our own breathing. Under partially cloudy skies for the first time in nearly a year, it was difficult to suppress the urge to open the suits, to breathe the air and feel the wind, to feel the sun’s warmth, and then the coolness in the shade of a passing cloud only to have the sun reappear shortly. After growing up on Mars, my time on Earth in the open atmosphere had had a profound effect on me. I fought myself back to focus.

“Full klick and reset!” I called to the team.

Without response, each member of the team began to run straight forward from their perimeter positions, spreading out like rays from a central sun. At the 1,000-meter mark, everyone stopped and rechecked all sensor readings. All clear calls came back from everyone.

An hour later we had moved another full klick to the exact center of the plateau and set up the hut. Lightweight but strong electro-plas sections were erected as walls, floor, and roof, then current switched on. The current created a magnetic bonding wherever the sections touched to “glue” them temporarily into place. A large doorway was created by touching a wand tip to a wall and drawing the doorway. The removed section became a large rectangular table and eight chairs were assembled in the interior. Force-field generators activated on the doorway to keep out the wind, dust, and noise. Glow rods were set into each corner to provide light. With that done, we packed up into the AV and moved back to the original landing spot. From there, I signaled the Rontar with the “All clear and ready” signal and they relayed the message to the Hanosians.

“Dog, shut ’em down to stand-by,” I ordered, referring to the AV weapons.

“Done, Wolf,” came the reply from Dog.

Protocol when dirtside in potentially hostile territory was that no message of rank or chain of command was to be used, only simple commands and simple responses. I had not taken a call-sign other than “Alpha” or “Actual,” and most of our team comms to this point had only responded to my simple orders with “Aye,” or “On it.”

But . . . “Wolf?” Where had that come from?

“Wolf?”

“You,” replied Ronin. “You’re always on the hunt, always sniffing and prowling around, always looking for the weak spots, the vulnerable places, and then you attack them. We all agreed on your call sign.”

“But I . . .”

“Too late, Wolf. It’s done.”

Well! Alright, then!

“Now, we wait for them,” I told the team. “Perimeter!”