A Private Little War(109)

“So what are…” Ted stared at the radio barking and yelling in his hand. He felt a cloud muddling his vision, his plans.

“The Akaveen are going to be slaughtered at Riverbend,” Connelly continued. “The lines are going to collapse. And now, the Colonial Marines cannot possibly be far behind.”

“Okay, so then—”

“So two percent. I suggest you take it in food and water and decamp immediately,” Connelly said. “You have to get out, Theodore. Now. Scrub the mission, call in your exfiltration, and get out as quickly as possible. My units can cover you for a day, but no more.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Hide. Burn my communications equipment. Cache all my gear. Wait until this all blows over. Then take my troops back into the field when everything quiets down. Can’t take more than a year.”

“A year.”

“I have a job to do, Commander. I have my men to think about. I don’t intend to let them down.” Connelly paused, looked skyward, straightened the mangy fur cape on his shoulders, and began to move away. “Two percent, then,” he said. “Food and water. I’ll have it saved out for you.” He shuffled his feet in the cold dirt. “Commander?”

Ted had said nothing. Connelly took a few steps, turned back. Looking at Ted standing dumbfounded with his radio in his hand, he seemed to reconsider.

“There is no exfiltration waiting for you, is there, Theodore,” he said.

“Of course there is,” Ted had lied. “Just have to call them.”

“Really?”

Ted had looked up. He’d looked Connelly in the eye. He would be damned before being shamed in front of this man, so he said, “Absolutely. Don’t worry about us. But there’s some time left. And I intend on using it to make those monkey motherfuckers regret ever leaving their little mud huts.”

Connelly stared at Ted. Around them, everyone was clearing the infield, looking up with hands shading eyes.

“Ten rifles,” Connelly said. “A thousand rounds of ammunition. All I can spare.”

And Ted had nodded distractedly. “If it’ll make you feel better,” he said. He, too, looked up and watched the cargo drop approaching, burning off its first drag chutes—low enough that they appeared to jerk and flare like wings of flame. There, then gone.

“Ted,” Connelly said.

Ted studiously did not look at him. Apparently, the man wasn’t done talking yet. “Do you have any idea how long this war has been going on between them? The natives?”

“No.” Ted watched the second parachutes deploy, billow for a second, then tear away. The container was dead on target. Someone up there really knew what they were doing. “Does it matter?”

“A thousand years, they’ve been fighting over this land. We are just an aberration. An eyeblink. One brief moment of magic and hope.”

And then Connelly had smiled again—an expression that, at first, Ted had thought looked all wrong on his face, like maybe he’d just learned how to do it and was still practicing. But there was something almost beatific about it, with depths of sadness and personal vision, of joy at being just where he was, glowing under the pall of disaster upon disaster. Connelly was a happy man and Ted could not stomach that at all. “No one is going to write songs about us when we’re gone.”





Ted shook himself. The conversation with Connelly he couldn’t get out of his head, but the man himself had vanished. He couldn’t think. He drew himself upright and debriefed Tommy Hill, grabbing him by the shoulder, listening without hearing his answers to any questions. Two squadron—Carter, Hill, and O’Day—had seen nothing. They’d been in the wrong position to see the action at Riverbend that’d just occurred, and had likely been too close to Southbend in the first place, flying against orders within sight of the walls. Ted no longer knew where he needed to send his planes to do good, only where he must ban to keep them from harm. He hadn’t wanted anyone else dying here for no good cause. Danny Diaz had been bad luck. Morris Ross had been bad planning. He felt that, somehow, he should’ve known that was coming so it could’ve been avoided. Stork was luck again, only good. He had been terrified of doing anything, but now… Now he was only afraid of doing nothing. He was trying to encompass all the intelligence of an entire planet, all the possible plans of all his possible enemies, and to secure himself and his men against every one of them.

Once Connelly had walked off, Ted had run for the control tent. Captain Teague’s flight had been up near Riverbend. They’d seen things happening there, had reported back with the worst of all possible bad news: That the end was coming. That everything was worse than anyone had wanted to believe. He’d demanded silence from the controllers in the tent. He might’ve threatened them with his pistol, but wasn’t sure. That seemed extreme. He’d gotten back on the radio with Teague. “Just come home…”