Rhodes and Fisher had to stop talking when Rhodes entered the meeting of the Battalion 1 governing body. This one was held in General Brewster’s office instead of Colonel Kraft’s.
General Brewster’s office was more like a stateroom or maybe even an open-plan apartment. He actually had a separate conference room attached to his office just so everyone present understood what a big shot he was.
The officers sat at the table instead of standing. Rhodes remained standing at the far end of the table—as far as he could get from these people.
“Thank you for coming to see us, Captain,” General Brewster began.
Rhodes waited—like he had some choice about coming to see them.
“We’d like to discuss this report of yours that the Masks are using SAMs technology.”
Rhodes still didn’t say anything. He’d already said everything he had to say on the subject of the Masks using SAMs technology.
The Legion should already know this as well as he did. Enough Masks got shot down on Bao. The Legion would be stupid not to retrieve some of them for study.
Then again, the Legion didn’t exactly distinguish itself for competence at the highest levels of command.
Rhodes could envision a scenario where the regular Legion retrieved destroyed Masks for study and didn’t recognize them simply because the Battalion 1 project was too highly classified.
The regular Legion wouldn’t recognize the Masks or their technology. Rhodes couldn’t say the same thing for these people in front of him right now.
He already showed them the Mask from Bao. If they didn’t believe him, he could only chalk that up to willful ignorance. It would have been perfectly in character with everything else they did in this project.
“Can you give us some further details on why you think the Masks are SAMs?” General Hyde asked. “Was there anything else that led you to draw that conclusion?”
“Do you mean besides the fact our SAMs short-circuited and refused to fight their own kind?” Rhodes asked. “That’s the most compelling evidence I can think of. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the SAMs. They were the ones who originally identified the Masks because the Masks were using The Grid.”
“I suppose it’s conceivable that the Masks could be using The Grid without being SAMs……” Colonel LeClerc interjected.
Rhodes snorted. “No, it isn’t. They manipulated the grid lines to change their outer shapes and give themselves faces.”
LeClerc bent over his device and frowned at the screen. “That isn’t the report we received from the platoon commanders. None of them said anything about the Masks changing shape….”
“They didn’t do it in battle—and I think we can all agree that the regular Legion wouldn’t have been able to see the grid lines. Only my subordinates, our SAMs, and I would be able to see the lines. We saw that downed Mask shifting the grid lines to give himself a face—exactly like a SAM.”
“At any rate, the Masks are invading the Treaty of Aemon Cluster and we have to fight them,” General Brewster chimed in. “What they are and how they’re doing it doesn’t matter as much as defeating them.”
“Why do you bother denying it?” Rhodes countered. “Just admit it. You discarded the implants of dead and failed battalion members. The implants and the SAMs attached to them modified themselves and created the Masks.”
“Be that as it may, we’ve decided to deploy you…..”
“I already said I wouldn’t deploy until you finish testing the new modifications to the SAMs….”
“The training session you just completed seems to indicate that your SAMs are fine working with each other.”
“The training session we just….” Rhodes broke off trying to think straight. “We didn’t complete it. You interrupted us……for this? You stopped that training session before we even got started so you could deploy us? Are you out of your minds? Henshaw is dead because of this. You’re the ones who keep telling me how expensive and valuable Battalion 1 is. Now you want to throw us away by sending us into combat when we aren’t ready.”
“What will it take to convince you?” Admiral Pulman asked. “You can’t spend the rest of your existence running training sessions here at Coleridge Station.”
Rhodes stopped himself from arguing back. In that moment, he really wished he could spend the rest of his existence running training sessions here at Coleridge Station.
That would be a better use of his time than sending unprepared and malfunctioning people into combat against an enemy as dangerous as the Masks.
He took a deep breath, but it didn’t steady his nerves. “I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting that you actually let us go through the training to make sure the SAMs are functioning correctly before you send us back out. Sending us out without that testing and training would be courting disaster. I can’t believe I even have to explain it to you.”
The officers squirmed a few more times. When one of them did finally work up the courage to speak, it was Colonel Kraft.
“The truth is, Captain, that we’re desperate. The Masks polished off the Eotis system impossibly fast—much faster than any of us anticipated. Now they’re moving on to the Noria system—which as you know has a sizable civilian population.”
“The Masks are already burning through Gisu, which is the outermost planet,” Colonel Neff added. “The Legion is already on the planet trying to slow them down so we can evacuate the rest of the population.”
“The battalion won’t be able to slow the Masks down,” Rhodes replied. “Nothing can.”
“Your presence can’t hurt,” General Hyde pointed out. “If we don’t send you, the Legion will fall and the Masks will take over the rest of the solar system.”
“We don’t even know why they’re doing this,” Admiral Pulman added. “They could plan to raze the whole Cluster for all we know.”
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Rhodes sighed. Would the battalion ever be ready to go back into combat? He didn’t foresee a time when he and his subordinates would ever be functional enough to face any enemy, especially not the Masks.
The project would continue to suffer setbacks and problems. It wasn’t possible for the battalion not to continue to malfunction in every imaginable way.
What difference did it make if Rhodes and his people malfunctioned here or on the battlefield? The battlefield would be more dangerous. So what?
Henshaw died in the battalion’s own capsule hold. Gannon died inside Coleridge Station. Neither of them died on the battlefield.
Maybe the battalion might actually be able to do some good on the battlefield despite their many malfunctions.
Rhodes and his subordinates already had done some good out there. They protected the platoons and got dozens of people back alive. The 249th would have gotten wiped out half a dozen times without the battalion’s protection.
He didn’t have to say he agreed. Colonel Kraft read his mind and spoke up again. “We’ll send you your orders by the end of the day, Captain. You have a week before you deploy, so you can run any training sessions and get Dr. Osborne to make any modifications in that time. He’ll also be able to continue to modify the battalion en route to the battlefront.”
Rhodes didn’t ask why the Battalion 1 governing body was waiting a week to deploy the battalion when the situation in the Noria system was so precarious.
Maybe Captain Ackerman refused to take the battalion out until he refitted his ship. Rhodes could think of a thousand factors that would slow the process down.
Meanwhile, the Masks chewed their way into one of the Treaty of Aemon Cluster’s most populous solar systems. This was another disaster in the making.
Rhodes took his time wandering back to the barracks. How the hell was he supposed to explain this to his subordinates?
He didn’t have to because they all listened through the interface. They already knew about the order to deploy and why the governing body interrupted the battalion’s training session just now.
He made it halfway back to the barracks before Rhinehart left them and met Rhodes at the concourse. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Rhodes asked.
“Would you mind if we had a private conversation off the interface?” Rhinehart waved toward one of the station’s side wings—toward the loading dock.
Rhodes took one instant to make sure the rest of his people heard and understood why he and Rhinehart were breaking the interface.
Rhodes switched off the interface and silence fell. He couldn’t see the other SAMs except for Rocky.
Rhodes and Rhinehart strolled down the other corridor heading for the loading dock. Neither man spoke until they got there.
Rhodes watched the ships launching and landing for a few minutes. The Ero sat to one side with the crew working on the ship’s outer hull.
Rhodes couldn’t see anything wrong with the ship, but Ackerman would know that better than Rhodes would.
Rhinehart broke the silence before Rhodes got a chance to ask what Rhinehart wanted to talk about.
“It’s weird, you know?” Rhinehart began. “I’ve been a soldier all my life. I never wanted to be anything else.”
Rhodes glanced over at him. “You still are one, Lieutenant. You’re one of the best soldiers I’ve ever known.”
“Not anymore.” Rhinehart gazed up at the stars. “I don’t want to go back into combat. I don’t want to go back out at all—not against any enemy—not against the Emal or the Masks or anybody else. I wouldn’t even want to go out against a rowdy civilian protest mob.”
Rhodes frowned at the side of Rhinehart’s face. “Neither do I. None of us does.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Rhinehart squirmed in his implants. “I want to ask you….if there’s any way….you could get Dr. Osborne to disconnect…..me. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Disconnect you? If you want to take yourself offline, you can do that yourself. You don’t need him to do it.”
“No, I don’t mean take myself offline. I mean….you know…disconnect my awareness that I’m doing it. Then I would still go into combat against the enemy. I just wouldn’t be aware that I’m doing it. The Legion could still deploy me wherever they think I’m needed.”
Rhodes glanced at Rocky. The SAM didn’t say a word through this conversation. Rocky didn’t protest Rhinehart basically asking for a different kind of death.
This wouldn’t threaten the SAM’s life. Rocky would probably continue to function. Only Rhinehart would cease to exist.
Rhinehart’s expression twisted and he grimaced out at the stars again. He refused to look at Rhodes. “I just can’t stand this any longer. I don’t want to be this. I understand why the Legion needs us. I just don’t want to do it anymore.” His shoulders spasmed. “I’m going crazy from this feeling of these things stuck to me.”
Rhodes didn’t say anything or offer any assurance. He knew that feeling only too well.
That feeling drove him batshit. It never went away.
Sometimes he tricked himself into thinking he was getting used to it. Then it came back with a vengeance, especially at times like now when something drew his attention to it.
That feeling of his implants chewing into his flesh and bones—it was only slightly worse than the feeling that he was losing his mind. He couldn’t even trust himself anymore.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Rhinehart blurted out. “You’re going to say we don’t even know if it’s possible to switch off my awareness without killing me. Dr. Osborne already told me the same thing….”
Rhodes spun around. “You already asked Osborne to do it?”
Rhinehart nodded. “He said he doesn’t know how.”
“Did he say he would be willing if he did know?”
Rhinehart nodded a second time. “He said he would have done it weeks ago if he only knew how. He said he would have been morally obligated to wipe our awareness from everyone in the whole battalion. He said keeping us aware through this process was the greatest war atrocity he’s ever heard of. He said the governing body should be executed for their crimes. He said the Battalion 1 project should have turned us into robots instead of keeping us aware of what was happening to us.”
Rhodes looked away. That explained why Dr. Osborne acted so compassionately toward everyone in Battalion 1. His attitude had been lightyears different from Drs. Neiland, Irvine, and Montague.
Now Rhodes got his answer, but it didn’t change anything. Dr. Osborne couldn’t switch off anyone’s awareness. Everyone in the battalion just had to live with this horror.
Rhodes took a long time to decide what to say to Rhinehart. “If you already asked Osborne and he doesn’t know how, what exactly do you want me to do?”
“Could you look into it?”
“Look into it how? I don’t know anything about this stuff. If Dr. Osborne doesn’t know how….” Rhodes trailed off when he remembered.
Dr. Osborne might not know a way to disconnect Rhinehart, but Osborne wasn’t the only doctor working on Battalion 1.
Dr. Trudeau had already voiced his objections to some of Osborne’s methods. What if Trudeau knew something Osborne didn’t?
“All right, Lieutenant,” Rhodes finally agreed. “I’ll look into it. I can’t make any promises. They might try to disconnect your awareness and wind up wiping all your brain activity. You could wind up dead.”
“I’m good with that. Anything is better than this. I only thought….you know….if they kept me alive, I might be able to help the Legion after all. I just wouldn’t know I was doing it.”
Rhodes nodded and turned away. “Yeah. I know.”
He didn’t argue the point any further. He and Rhinehart headed back to the barracks and Rhodes reactivated the interface on the way. No one besides Rocky and Fisher would ever find out what Rhodes and Rhinehart had been talking about—unless they succeeded.
If Trudeau or someone else succeeded in erasing Rhinehart’s awareness while still keeping his body and his fighting skill alive, the whole battalion would find out about it.
If Osborne was right about Battalion 1 being wrong—which of course he was—then he and Trudeau would be obligated to wipe the whole battalion.
The conversation gave Rhodes plenty to think about. He couldn’t imagine why Rhinehart would want his awareness wiped.
Rhodes could think of a lot of reasons why he wanted to die and stop doing this. As long as he was still alive, fighting the Treaty of Aemon Cluster’s enemies, and suffering the tortures of the damned, he might as well get some payoff for his trouble.
Helping the platoons and protecting defenseless civilians—he couldn’t think of any better payoff than that. It was the only payoff.
He wouldn’t want to do any of this without the awareness of why he was doing it. Knowing that was the only thing that made any of this tolerable. He couldn’t give that up. He would rather be really, truly dead.
End of Chapter 34