Gambit

Nancy Jane Moore

From No Man’s Land

The com squawked in Cassie Ramirez’s ear. It startled her, though she had been lying awake for the last hour, worrying. “Yeah?”

“Transport moving out there, Lieutenant. About a hundred klicks out.”

Not again. They’d only been running this check point for three Earthstandard days, and already they’d been challenged by four bands of rebels. So far everybody’d backed down. Would this be the group that didn’t? She shivered, and not just from the cold that never went away on Titan.

“Lieutenant?”

“Acknowledged. On my way. Got any coffee made?”

“Yes, ma’am. Good and strong.”

At least Titan grew good, cheap coffee. The bioformers had installed genemodded coffee plants on every planet, asteroid, and moon they’d transformed. On Titan the plants had done particularly well.

Cassie pulled her exoskeleton on over her fatigues and set its heat at high. Both skel and fatigues were patterned in the dark green camo that marked the Combined Forces Peacekeeping Corps, and both had her name and rank displayed over her left breast. But it was the skel—made from silicon merged with one of the Ceresian metals—that allowed humans without Titan-specific gene tweaks to survive outdoors. She buckled on the weapons vest, locked its circuitry plug into the skel, and checked to see that the weapons were fully charged.

She ran her fingers through her short, bleached blonde hair, then pulled the skel’s headpiece up. She’d need the light source outside. Saturn still shone orange in the sky, but Titan at its brightest resembled Earth at full moon. And the bright peak had passed.

Bobby Rowan had tried to convince her that the glow from Saturn was the same as sunlight. “It’s caused by the sun, right?”

She had laughed. “You just want it to be sunlight, so you don’t feel so far from home.”

He’d laughed, too. “Maybe I do. It’s summer now in Vancouver. The sun comes up before five, doesn’t set ’til after ten.”

Typical Earther. Tied to a particular city in a particular country. And homesick for it.

It hurt, to think of Bobby laughing. They’d fought four days ago, fought badly, maybe irrevocably. And over what? Politics. Fucking politics.

The bareness of the clearing where they’d set up the check point emphasized the density of the trees surrounding it. Their leaves gave off an acidic smell, overpowering other odors. Tall, wide-leafed, most of them a genemodded evergreen with foliage that tended to turn yellow, they’d been planted in the twenty-second century to give Titan a breathable atmosphere. The solar collectors orbiting the moon brought them just enough sunlight for photosynthesis.

The checkpoint consisted of a cluster of instabuild cabins, one set right at the road to block traffic, three others forming a mini compound. She stepped inside the one that housed scan and comm, and helped herself to the coffee. “Anything else show up?”

Gavin, the scan tech, shook his head. “No, ma’am. Transport still headed our way.”

“Only one?”

“That’s what’s showing up, ma’am.”

“Funny. They usually have several. Wake the rest of the crew when they get within fifty klicks or so. I want a full staffing out there.”

He looked at her. “You got a bad feeling about this one, Lieutenant?”

“Just want to be cautious. The political situation’s gotten pretty tense.” She tried to keep her voice off-hand, calm.

He nodded.

Cassie added more coffee to her cup, and went outside. Even with the skel on high she could feel the cold. Earthers had it worse; they’d never been genemodded at all. But even those like her who had grown up in the other settled parts of the solar system didn’t have the heavy gene tweaks the Titanians had needed.

Still, the chill in her bones didn’t come from the cold. Ten years experience—more than half of it in combat—was causing it.

She sat on the stoop of one of the buildings—she wanted to pace, but it would look bad—sipped more coffee, and realized she was scared. A very bad sign.

You’re just being paranoid, she told herself. That’s what Bobby would tell you.

That’s what she’d fought with Bobby about the day before the platoon moved from guarding diplomats to running the point. They’d started—and ended—the evening in one of the coffee houses that dotted the once-popular resort city of Revelations. The city had changed hands a dozen times during the war; now it was certified neutral territory, site of the peace negotiations, headquarters of the PK troops.

Cassie had gotten there first. She was sitting where she could watch the door, so she saw Bobby before he saw her. He stopped in the doorway and pushed back the headpiece of his skel. In the interior light—the café catered to the peacekeeping forces and kept both heat and light at higher levels than Titanians preferred—his red hair shone like a beacon.

Seeing Bobby always made Cassie feel ridiculously good. She tamped the feeling down.

He spotted her, and began navigating her way, stumbling as he tried to avoid bumping into the closely packed tables and chairs. Earthers struggled with Titan’s light gravity—one of many reasons why the PK force was largely stocked with people like Cassie who’d been born off-Earth.

She stood up to give him a quick kiss. He pulled her close, and they stood there a little longer than she’d intended. She broke it off first—public displays of affection always embarrassed her.

He took off his gloves and rubbed his hands together as they both sat down. “Ah, nice and warm in here.” He motioned to the waitress to bring him some coffee, and grinned widely at Cassie.

She tried to grin back, but she didn’t feel as cheerful as he did. Lots of rumors had been flying through the troops about major problems at checkpoints. Her soldiers were jumpy, which didn’t bode well for their assignment. She said, “I see you’re in a good mood. Peace talks went well?”

“Not bad. We made a little progress.” Bobby served as aide de camp—chief assistant—to Gudrid Amudsen, chief peacemaker for the United System Governments’ diplomatic corps.

“Really? How unusual. Did the True Harkers actually agree to something?” She hadn’t intended sarcasm, but it came out anyway.

Bobby’s grin faded. “I wish you’d have more faith in the negotiation process. Nothing’s going to happen overnight—these people have been fighting for thirty years.”

“And after six months of talks all we’ve got is a cease-fire best defined by its breaches. I heard the Harkers moved into Jehovah City again.”

He sighed. “Yeah, we got a report on that.”

“And the government negotiators didn’t walk out? I would have.”

“Obviously they’ve got more faith in the negotiations than you do.”

“Or maybe they’re just scared. They ought to be scared. The True Harkers are winning this war. And we’re just sitting here on our hands, pretending both sides are the good guys.”

Bobby said, in a disgusted tone, “So we should just intervene on the side of the government?”

“You already know I think so,” Cassie said. They could practically have this fight by the numbers now. “Half the USG nations are scared they’ll actually have to do something. And the others are more interested in continuing the war so they can sell weapons to both sides.”

Bobby sighed, and reached over for her hand. “Cassie, nothing’s ever going to be completely smooth when so many different governments are involved. I know USG has screwed up before. They’ll screw up again. Humans aren’t even close to perfect. We’re still learning how to get to the root of conflicts, and we’re going to make mistakes. Especially in religious wars. But Titan isn’t Ceres.”

Cassie yanked her hand back angrily. She hated feeling patronized. “I goddamned well know Titan isn’t Ceres. But that’s no excuse for screwing up here like they screwed up there.”

Bobby stared down at the menu. He took a deep breath, and said, “Cassie, could we not have this fight tonight? We don’t have much time to spend with each other.”

Maybe if she hadn’t felt so nervous about the checkpoint assignment, she’d have been able to let it go. “If you weren’t so damned enamored of all the nice-sounding peacemaking theory, you’d agree with me. The True Harkers want to run Titan. They’re not going to negotiate in good faith as long as they think they can win.”

“Then why in hell are they at the negotiating table?”

“So they can hang out here in Revelations near the shuttle point, and buy weapons from some of those so-called diplomats.”

He closed the menu with a slap. “Now you’re being paranoid. Do you believe every rumor some scared private starts?”

“I heard it from an air captain who was trying to enforce the embargo. He told me all the ways light craft could get around his blockade.”

“And you bought into his paranoia. Look, Amudsen says the weapons embargo is holding tight. A little stuff is getting through, sure. It always does. But nothing significant, nothing for you to worry about.”

“And if the great Amudsen says so, it must be true.”

Bobby stood up. He ran his chit through the table register to pay for the coffee. “I’d better get back. Long day tomorrow.”

They’d planned to spend the evening—and the night—together, knowing it would be several Earth weeks before they saw each other again. Bobby stood there, shifting his feet awkwardly. Cassie didn’t want him to leave, and she knew he didn’t really want to go. All she had to do was say something conciliatory. It wouldn’t even have to be a full apology. But she couldn’t.

She said, “Yeah, it’s hard work, dithering around.”

“Fight’s over, Cassie. Both sides lost.” He turned on his heel and walked out.

Four days later she was still replaying it all in her mind.

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