“I also have some new orders from corporate that I don’t quite understand and was hoping you might offer your… wisdom.”
Ted lowered his gaze, leveling it at Eddie like a gun. In the hesitation between your and wisdom, there would’ve been just enough space for Ted to have punched Eddie in the mouth.
Thinking about it later, sitting alone in his tent, Ted kind of wished he had.
In the comms tent, Eddie Lucas had shown Ted the new orders that had come in by burst transmission less than six hours prior, heavily fortified by encryption and translate-at-station code. Eddie had done the laborious work of number, letter, and phrase substitution by hand, hunched over his burn-before-capture code books back in his own private quarters, behind a locked door and under a pin light as if there were spies everywhere. As if the monkeys could’ve even read a billboard announcing all vile intentions of the company and its people here on Iaxo.
Eddie had inserted the breaks. He’d printed a clean copy to puzzle over when, in final draft, the message had been so clotted with jargon, abbreviation, and nomenclature that he’d been unsure of what, precisely, he was being told to do (or not do) by calculating bosses a billion miles away.
But when he’d shoved the clean sheet under the commander’s nose, it’d taken Ted thirty seconds to read the orders twice. To him, the language was music, his native tongue. He’d understood the content of the orders before the end of the first line.
FINAL ORDERS:
Priority to Chief of Ops, Chief of Comms, Carpenter 7 Ep,
TAG 14-447
Report Key: 310B4FC4-AA127-C7EP2365
Tracking Number: None
Attack Code: None
Originator Group: UNKNOWN
Updated by Group: FALSE
SigAct: CCIR Order
1) Please stand by for DIVERT SUPPLY OP by HALO delivery, your LKL, this 2400, +/- 12 hrs local. Inbound CLP as per request this 212/365, London, Earth. Scheduled CLP op of 50/365 next has been scrubbed. REPEAT: op 50/365 next HAS BEEN SCRUBBED per XO, London, Earth.
2) DO NOT RETRANSMIT. Operation Carpenter &c. is under comms/radiation blackout 48 hrs from time of receipt, this message. Duration unknown.
3) Operation Carpenter &c. is under executive blackout upon receipt, this message, immediate. Duration unknown.
4) NEW ORDERS: Super orders of this 300/365, operation Carpenter &c. is ZERO ENGAGE upon receipt, this message, immediate. Duration IAW local command. Operation Carpenter &c. is outside compromised, source unknown ATT. Operation Carpenter &c. now ASG/JOG IAW local command. Duration unknown.
5) Retrieval is NONCOMMIT, ATT. Duration unknown.
6) SigAct 24 hrs, this message, +/- 24 hrs, for final FCOM, London, Earth. Release pending. No retry. REPEAT: NO RETRY.
SPEC ORDERS to follow. OP CONFIRM to follow. Further SigAct by NONCONFIRM XO, dts to follow.
“I have some questions,” Eddie had said when he was sure Ted was finished reading.
Ted sniffed. “You have a copy for me?” he’d asked. He tapped the single sheet with a fingertip. “This was marked CCIR—Commander’s Critical Information Requirements. That means you should have a second copy for me.”
Eddie produced one, neatly folded in thirds, from inside his jacket and handed it over. Then he repeated himself. “I have some questions.”
Ted had straightened up. He’d carefully slipped the copy into one of his own pockets and then smoothed the fabric over it with the palm of one hand. “Corporate is going to be calling you tomorrow,” he said. “Ask your questions then. It’ll be your last chance.”
And then Ted had walked out. There were things he needed to do. He had to go to the field house, organize a party to unload the drop when it landed. He had a request outstanding from Antoinne Durba for air support, so would have to go to the longhouse and have a plane rolled out and readied for a night mission. He would have to tear through the drop, find flares (which they’d been out of, save for a few pistol-fired signal flares, for weeks), get them pulled and hung in a hurry.
Most of the rest of the camp was still or already awake, gathered either in the mess or in the field house—trying to stay warm, rubbing their hands and slapping their own arms, dancing around in the cold, drinking. It was becoming a party. Another stage of the party that’d been going on for as long as they’d been here. Somewhere in the dark, the boys were shouting at one another, running around like savages. In the dirt by the mess, Charlie Voss from three squadron, Raoul, the mechanic, and the armorer, Max, were playing chickenshit with a thumb-sized piece of explosive compound taken from a bomb head and an indistinct length of fusing wire hidden under a helmet. The game was to light the fuse and have everyone start with their hand on the helmet. First one to jerk his hand away—to turn, run for cover, panic in the face of possible grievous injury—was chickenshit and mocked roundly by his braver, stupider companions. In the end, everyone lost more than they won.