Semo waits behind the bulkhead door with his squad as the captain begins the negotiations with the aliens. He can only hope that they will get Greene back, though he doubts it will happen that way. Too much distrust and treachery on both sides.
He hears the gate open with a whumpf and the murmur of discussion back and forth. Moments later, Verrill shouts an abort and Semo can hear the SCAR chattering, but the bulkhead door doesn't open. He can only wonder exactly what is transpiring inside, but he trusts the captain to make the right decision.
Then the gate clangs to the deck with a reverberation they can all feel. The door finally opens and Semo can see Hugh ejecting his magazines as he steps into the room. So Greene is dead. Semo isn't really surprised.
With nothing else to do, he orders his team to take up guard positions and then moves over to stand near the captain.
Semo looks at the ground for a moment. "I want to appologize in advance, just in case I'm ordered to arrest you. I know you did what you had to, Captain. It was an ugly situation, and I know Greene knew that going in."
Angel follows Sumo in with his team about the time the muzzle flashes start going off, quickly giving up any pretense of doing much of anything except surveying the bleak room.
The Gateway glyphs glow amber three times in as many minutes. The third time, the Imperium attempts radio contact. The bass voice is distorted, scratchy, and undercut by currents of grinding dissonance.
*Bury your Gate and flee your planet; we will find you. We will find you, and you will die knowing your childrens' children will swear allegiance to the Jade Imperium. Your bedtime stories will disappear, replaced by tales of Vidas Lam and his clone chambers, of the First's revolt against the Masters, and of the pacification of Bashakra. The Homeworld will be cleansed and Her true children will return home.*
The Delta teams move in and remove Varos from the rover, cuffing him to a wheelchair for ease of movement.
"That's the last thing we need," Sturgis growls. "Get that geezer to Interrogation A. I want to know what that gold motherfucker was. Delta team, secure Captain Verrill's weapons and escort him to Interrogation B. Doc, keep an eye on things down here until Paxton gets back from his hunting party."
Hugh hands over his weapons and doesn't put up a fight. He's seething inside, but he keeps it locked down until he's in the interrogation room. He sits down, buries his face in his hands and rubs his eyes. He's suddenly feeling about ten years older.
Luis was sequestered back in the main operations center with Max when it all goes down. As it happens, he can barely believe the views on the closed circuit lines. everything seems fine, as it happens, but then the Captain opens up on their own man and then the Gate is down and blocked. The Imperium's message is the kind of thing you hear in nightmarish movies, and sends a chill up his spine, but the more pressing issue is the captain. Luis owes him his life many times over, and he trusts his judgement to the ends of the Earth (and, these days, beyond), but he wonders what happened to get Hugh to do what he did.
Hugh's alone in the concrete gray interrogation cell for what seems like an hour. Eventually the door opens and a man about Hugh's height with kindly round eyes and an inquisitor's bearing enters. He's wearing the gold maple leaf of a major and his uniform reads HILLARD. Hugh's never seen him before, but he's not surprised considering the circus surrounding Mesas Negras as of late.
"General Underwood's been briefed on the operation, Captain. I'm here to take your statement. Why did you fire on Specialist Greene?"
---
Not surprisingly, with their immediate commander out of the loop, Semo, Luis, and Angel are out of the loop. There are some disturbing rumors flying about the site. You hear that the CIA or NSA might be taking over. You hear the Gateway might be getting moved somewhere even more remote - Alaska, Antarctica, the middle of the Pacific. You hear that one of the Turai actually escaped and is at large. You hear he got taken down by local police. You hear he TOOK down local police.
---
Max gets the preliminary reports back from the medical tests run on Taylor, Mellish, Dietrich, Tupolev, and Cavanaugh. From what he can tell, everyone but Dietrich and Mellish are fine. Mellish is still hooked up to IVs and is recovering from early stages of starvation. Basically, he regenerated so much tissue that his body couldn't produce enough energy to sustain him without medical help. Dietrich has his lucid moments, but he's still kept under guard. All the affected personnel have slightly altered DNA where the frisbee was used. It doesn't seem to regenerate the victim's own tissue so much as replace it with safe, generic meat. It's unknown whether this is because nobody really knows how to operate it correctly or whether that's just how it works. Max remembers back to the splotchy "scars" on the Turai and would guess that no matter who uses it or how much they tweak it, you'd get the same effect. Dietrich's problem stems from his brain damage. He was right on death's door for a while, and the radiation he soaked up would have a global effect. That means the frisbee affected his entire body - including his brain. It'd explain his partial memory loss and possibly also explain his random babbling in the Imperial language.
At the bottom of the report there's a fax number. The doctors want Max's final word on who should be returned to active duty.
Hugh snaps off a quick salute to the Major, then sits down and explains himself, easily slipping into speechify mode.
"For the record - I had prior experience with agents of the Jade Imperium breaking agreements and twisting deals to their advantage. When I proposed the plan to extract Specialist Greene, it was my full intention to get him out alive. The entire plan was designed so that we could, at the very least, extract Specialist Greene, even if it meant losing Varos to the Imperium.
However, once the portal was established, it was obvious to me that the Imperium was trying to take advantage of us. After their negotiator tore Specialist Greene's spacesuit, it became clear to me that they were not in the least concerned for his safety - and I drew the conclusion that sending Varos through in a hurried attempt to save Greene would not lead to an extraction.
It was at this point that I decided to kill Specialist Greene. I was convinced that, no matter what we do, he would suffer a slow and painful death by asphyxiation and vacuum exposure. I decided that it was better to kill him quickly than let him die like that. I didn't have a lot of time to think it through, it was a snap judgement, but I think it was the right call at the moment. We managed to kill another Jade Imperium official in the process, demonstrated our resolve and didn't lose Varos. I'm firmly convinced that, despite the loss of Specialist Greene, this was the best possible result."
He briefly pinches the bridge of his nose.
"I admit I was surprised by the Imperium's plan to hold the exchange in a vacuum. As far as I'm aware, it never occurred to anyone in the project group that the exchange would not take place on a planet's surface. And that's all there is to it, really. They outmaneuvered us, I made a tough choice. I wish we could've made it work and rescued Specialist Greene, but given the situation, I see no way we could've succeeded."
"Thank you, Captain. The end result is we have retained our two assets and denied the enemy theirs. Refusal to act would've resulted in the pain and suffering of our own, and deviation from the operation had a high risk of losing all our assets to the enemy. I think that the brass will agree with your assessment, Captain. I can't say what will happen, but I can tell you there probably won't be a court-martial or anything like that. We don't even know who's going to end up in charge down here yet. You're on light duty. Don't leave the base until otherwise notified - same spiel as your men."
---
Max fills out the fax form and zaps it back to the medical facility. He's giving everyone but Dietrich the OK to return to duty. Mellish'll be a little late in rejoining his unit, but Max also greenlights the Hammer.
Being at loose ends, Semo mostly hangs out with the other grunts from Delta: Luis and Angel. He chats while absentmindedly cleaning his weapons and listens to tunes.
Various rumors come through, but even Semo has learned not to take rumors too seriously. The brass will tell him what he needs to know when he needs to know it. Until then, maintain preparedness.
Hugh heads out to meet up with his team for rumor control.
"There's no final call yet, but it looks like I didn't fuck it up too bad - the Major basically agreed with me, and the brass will probably follow. Still, I got a bad feeling about this. We're on light duty, don't leave, I'm sure they gave you the same song. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I need a shower, a meal and a good night's sleep, in roughly that order. Anyone with me?"
"It would be a nice change from the MREs and parakeet-sized mosquitos chewing through our tents." replies Max, scratching at one of the many welts on his arm.
The following weeks are a blur as Hugh stumbles through pretrial investigations, discussing his case with his defense counsel and repeating his testomony in court. Reality eases off the "fast forward" button when Hugh hears the "All rise!" one last time.
"Have the court members reached a verdict?"
---
Being under arrest, Hugh spends most of those weeks in the Army Regional Confinement Facility at Fort Sill, Colorado. The biggest enemy is boredom; the other inmates leave him alone after someone spreads the rumor that he's Delta. He uses the time to catch up on some of the brightest strategic minds of mankind sharing their wisdom in books - Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and US Army Field Manual FM 100-5 alike are his companions.
---
"We have, Sir."
---
They do let him out once; it's probably not the best idea to be a white guy walking through Baltimore's Cherry Hill, but he's got a tail - military police, both for his protection and to make sure he doesn't get any stupid ideas. Fully decked out in his dress uniform, a folded US flag in his hands, he approaches a door and rings the bell.
Another gateway to walk through...
---
"Captain Hubert Verrill: on the charge of murder, the members find the accused not guilty."
---
"Specialist Greene - your son - was a good soldier," Hugh says, and it almost sounds reassuring. Greene's mother is there, and his little brother is hiding behind the couch, watching that stranger spin his story - the sanitized version. The coffee Ms. Greene offered Hugh is getting cold while he talks, slowly and deliberately.
"If you've read the official report, you will see that it's listed as a training accident, but I'm not here to sell you that. Ms. Greene, I can't tell you what we did, but your son saved our lives. Me, his entire squad, he sacrificed himself so we could get out there alive. He'd taken a shot in the leg, and I'm no medic, but it looked serious - he didn't want to be evacuated."
Interesting quick lie, that - Hugh saw the Baltimore Marathon trophies on the way in.
"He said he was gonna keep that leg," Hugh says, and Ms. Greene weeps quietly. "And when we dusted off, we still heard him firing. He was a soldier to the end."
It's easier to sell a lie if you make it look like a hidden truth. Hugh knows that, and it's way too easy to use that. Ms. Greene finally hugs him, cries out loud, and he comforts her. All he can think about is what would happen if he didn't play this.
Actually, Ms. Greene, I shot your son in cold blood. Can I have another cup of joe?
He hugs her a bit stronger when that thought shoots through his mind.
---
There's no big paparazzi crowd when he leaves court, just an SUV waiting for him. He recognises the faces - CIA spooks. He doesn't even care about the details any more - all he knows is that the Gateway Program wants him. He wonders whether that verdict was real, whether he's only innocent as long as he's useful, but he dismisses that thought. He did the right thing. Everybody keeps saying that. How often does he have to hear it before he can believe it?
Hugh nods to the men, walks down the steps and gets into the car. He may be innocent, but he's not free.
Luis's next few months go by fast. In addition to numerous debriefings and lectures from various spooks and brass about how they "wish that you didn't know what you do" or "this is all utterly Top Secret," he tries to find time to follow the captain's trial, but on top of that he's engaged in several other projects. He's part of a group reviewing the alien's medical tech for its side effects, its benefits, and ways to make an Earth version that will eliminate the former and keep the later; another that's destructive testing some of the armor recovered, with similar goals. He's not really the most active member of the groups, but his real experience with the tech gives him a leg up on some of the more trained experts. Still, he's feeling a bit useless and takes time to study up on the latest version of the translations of the Turai language. Language has never been his strong point, but by foring himself to work through it, he manages to pick it up reasonably well. The actual linguist he manages to convince to tutor him informs him his grammar and mechanics are on par with a teenager in a chatroom, but that's better than they were. With all this going on, he barely manages to find time to sleep and eat, but he enjoys it.
It has been over six months since the failed Turai invasion through the Fargate transport vector. Great breakthroughs and improvements have been made to facility and Fargate in no small part due to my highly competent team of scientific colleagues. Dr. Tupolev and I have engineered a viable and (dare I say) usable method of controlling the Fargate's substantial inherent security shortcomings. A titanium iris (hereafter cited as "The Iris") has been fitted over the Fargate's opening. Operated by pneumatic pumps (both electrical and backup manual systems), the few tests we have been able to conduct in the duration have been completely successful. The Iris should prove to be an efficient stopgap measure if/when command resumes full Gate operations. Taking from the Turai's IFF transmitters, we have adopted sub-dermal identifiers which will provide an additional measure of security against incoming invaders.
The Turai Armor and technology in general is, for lack of better term, fascinating. The wealth of knowledged that has been obtained from even the most simplest of devices procured from the salvaged Turai equipment is enough for one scientist to spend a lifetime analyzing. With that, my Team own intellectual limits have been pushed with the resources currently available to the Research Division of Fargate Command. That, in turn, leads me to requesting additional support from other agencies and great minds of the world. Several trips to DC and Langley have yield some positive steps in the right direction.
I am pleased that most of our original expeditionary force to the Whirr planet have resumed normal duties. I will say that while at odds with their oft-barbaric tendencies, the Deltas are an invaluable, dependable, and honorific branch of the Armed Forces. I look forward to my Team's continued work with Captain Verrill, his NCOs, and infantrymen.
Angel spends the prolonged downtime - something vaguely unfamiliar to the Delta boys - primarily in the sack. He sleeps what could be considered an alarming amount, especially for a scout, but when pressed to find him something better to do, everyone seems to come up blank. And Semo comes to the realization that, despite the inherent watchfulness that comes from being a Sergeant, he doesn't think he's ever seen Angel asleep on deployment. Like, not ever - ever.
The large Samoan can be seen wandering down the bases hallway muttering something about "sleep camels".
Otherwise, Angel occupies his time hanging out with the surviving base personnel, and occasionally assisting the nerd herd with the occasional "high velocity hostile ballistics" test.
Once Captain Verrill's case is bound over for investigation and trial, life at the base settles into a mind-numbing routine. Of course, that's nothing new to any real military man, and Staff Sargeant Semo Putupu is no exception. The base fairly crawls with spooks of one sort or another, and Semo actually manages to get to know a few of them.
In the meantime, the sargeant and the Delta team spend most of their time on guard duty. Most of them find various forms of entertainment to whittle away the endless hours. Semo cannot help noticing that Angel seems to spend all of his off-duty hours asleeep. All of them.
A modern-day Rip Van Winkle? Semo can only shake his head and wonder.
No real surprise, but Semo isn't allowed to keep his alien sword. However, he hears through channels that they may be available for requisition on any future missions. That is enough to give the big Samoan hope, though he quickly realizes that he needs to really learn to use it.
Asking around, Semo finds that one of the spooks on base is quite proficient in the Filipino martial art of Arnis, which focusses largely on sticks, daggers and other small hand-held weapons. Perfect. Making friends with the - ulp - woman, Semo sets into a rigorous regime of training whenever he's not on duty. As a spook, the woman is often busy on odd schedule. Nevertheless, SSgt Putupu spends countless hours practicing on his own whenever she isn't avail for instruction.
By time they learn of Captain Verrill's acquittal and return, Semo has lost 35 pounds and become passably proficient in Arnis. So happy is he to hear of Hugh's pending return, he actually asks the lady spook for a date.
Not surprisingly, she turns him down.
Oh well. More time for practicing the skills she taught him, then.
fanchergw
