A Private Little War(99)

“Nothing’s nothing, pilot.”

Carter shook his head again. Redheaded Irene and solitaire with a deck missing an ace. An unwinnable game. “Let it go.”

“You don’t have to know,” Eddie continued. “It’s like flipping ahead in a book and reading the last page. Knowing doesn’t change anything. The story still goes the same way.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he looked almost pleadingly now at Fenn, stepping carefully across the floor toward the stove, now at Carter, standing in front of him. “You can do your jobs perfectly well without knowing, is all I’m saying.”

He squirmed a little. Fenn stared at him unblinkingly. Carter did the same, pinning him there on the bed like a bug.

“We can talk about something else.” His cigarette was burned out, forgotten, between his fingers. “Anything else.”

Because in war stories, that’s what men do. Pictures of sweethearts, stories of home. Carter unclipped his dog collar, pulled his shirt off over his head. He had no sweetheart. This was his home. The whole time he’d been in prison, no one had visited. His parents had never written once. Neither had his brothers. He imagined their thoughts, how, as far as they were concerned, he’d died on a poster somewhere. In a photograph. On the news. An embarrassment and a failure and now, hardly even a memory. It’d been twenty years.

Eddie looked from Fenn to the door to Carter to the door to Fenn again. “Eden, right? What a ridiculous name.” He laughed weakly.

“So, Eden,” Fenn said slowly, “should we be expecting any help from on high?”

Eddie’s face hardened. “I know what you all think of me,” he said. “I mean, I’m not stupid.”

Carter sighed and sat down beside him. He started working on his boots. “Eddie, none of us have really thought about you much at all.”

And Eddie laughed—one short, sharp bark. “None,” he said. “No help. And no ride home.” He slapped his hands down onto the mattress, palms flat, dust and hair and dead skin puffing up around them. “Is that what you want to know? Two years we’ve been here, you fucking idiots. More. And what have you done? Drank, smoked, walked around like arrogant pricks in your uniforms. We had native support, and you chased them off. We had will on our side, and you squandered it. You had planes, bombs, machine guns, computers, everything. Everything the company could give you. And what did you do with it all? You lost! To a bunch of cavemen! This mission should’ve been over in three months, but what? You were all having too much fun, weren’t you? Playing soldier. Acting like all of this was so awful, so hard on you because you didn’t have the right movies or climate control or whores and ice cubes for your drinks? You are all fucking embarrassments! I’ve spent every day—every goddamn day for two years—talking to corporate, telling them how well we’ve been doing, how we’re worshipped by the natives, how we’re winning every day. But you have accomplished nothing.”

“Hey, Eddie…” Fenn started forward, a calming hand extended. Carter sat frozen, hunched over, his boot half-off. Fast Eddie was coming unstuck right in front of him. He found it fascinating.

“No,” he said, pointing a finger at Fenn, which was not a smart thing to do under the best of circumstances. “You wanted to hear this, Captain. Now you’re going to hear it. Every other military contractor has been pulled out on this continent. All of them. If the Akaveen lines collapse, which they will, or if the Lassateirra break through at some point and come our way, the company is looking at a one hundred percent material loss. It’s already been written off in the next quarter’s projections—materials, death benefits, legal, everything. And it’s not like we’re talking about a lot of materials or anything. A bunch of antique planes, a few engines, a few guns—that’s nothing. The comms equipment and flight control are worth a few dollars. So is the equipment in the longhouse and the machine shop. But even with everything put together, the company has spent ten times more shipping everything here than all the stuff is actually worth. Subtract two years of depreciation, factor in a nice, fat insurance bond payout, outstanding costs amortized, and the seven years it will take before any personal compensations are paid to your next-of-kin because none of us will actually die on paper, just be listed as missing, pending investigation. In the next shareholder report, Flyboy will take a small financial hit, which it will spread over several quarters, passing along any losses to its investors and future clients, while we are all forgotten as quickly and completely as possible. Buried. Carter thinks I’m such a coward, but he hasn’t had to watch the commander listening in on the radios as everyone else has left. We’re under communications blackout, but Carter hasn’t had to try and stop Ted from calling up the company every night and screaming at them for nerve gas or new planes or a recovery mission. Ted has lost his mind, Captain. It’s mush. Gone. He finds me in my tent and demands cruise missiles, for God’s sake! A boat! He asked me for a boat! He’s the one that’s been trying to find us a ride off-planet with one of the other companies, but he couldn’t manage it. He is useless! And we are now officially a lost cause because you pilots couldn’t turn a thousand-year technological advantage into a victory. And do you know what I spent last night doing?”