One Good Soldier

July 1, 2394 AD

Sol System, Oort Cloud

Friday, 2:17 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

Dee sat in the copilot's seat of the passenger shuttle and watched as Colonel Fink handled the controls like the seasoned Marine pro he was. She was still ecstatic from her short stay on the nation's flagship and getting to fly in real mecha with real ace pilots. The day couldn't get any better as far as she was concerned. Well, it would've been better if she had shot down DeathRay, but that little maneuver he had done was amazing and was tempting Dee to sway toward the Navy ROTC program instead of the marines. Her mind raced with the torment of such a decision. She didn't have to make it for two years tops, so she tried to put it out of her mind and focus on the wonder that was her trip thus far.

"You should have seen her, Clay," Jay said to her bodyguard. The two of them were sitting in the two seats behind the pilot and copilot's couches. "She was all over the place, thinking she was all badass. But I'll tell ya one thing, that Captain Boland really stuck it to her and the other marines." Jay laughed just a bit. Dee knew her wingman loved it if he ever could manage to get under her skin. She seldom let that happen. Dee had learned from growing up watching her father that being calm and collected when people were trying to get at you was one of the best defenses in deflating their attacks. When people saw that you didn't really care about their verbal abuse, they tended to quit wasting the effort.

"Yeah, Clay, you should have seen it." Dee turned back toward them with a sly grin. "Jay lasted at least forty seconds or so. He was so awesome right up until that marine blasted him out of the sky." She smiled at her wingman. Had she been six or twelve she might have stuck out her tongue, but the smirk she gave him was quite sufficient.

"Knock that chatter off, you two dead-ass nuggets," Fink grunted at them. "I'm trying to fly to another star system here."

"Passenger Shuttle Hermione all clear for QMT in ten seconds," the QMT facility-control AIC announced to Fink.

"Roger that, tower. We're ready when you are."

The four of them sat silently for the countdown and watched as the quantum membrane of the universe was tugged together between stars that were nearly fifteen light-years apart. The large light sphere appeared and then rippled into a two-dimensional illusion. The view of the Oort Cloud below blended and then swapped with a different view of an almost exact duplicate QMT facility, but this one was orbiting a plush blue-green world just below it rather than out in the cold depths of deep space.

"Welcome to the Ross 128 Colony of Arcadia, U.S. Passenger Shuttle Hermione," the Arcadia tower AIC announced.

"Thank you, tower," Fink replied and then turned to Dee. "Cadet Moore, why don't you take it from here. I'm gonna stretch my legs a second."

"Roger that, Colonel." Dee took the controls and had her AIC tap her into the DTM link to the traffic-control AIC. She paid little attention to the colonel as he made his way between Stavros and Clay to the back.

Dee followed the flight corridor she was given by the tower AIC, with little concentration required. After all, it wasn't like dogfighting with ace mecha pilots. The tower told her to pull into a parking orbit momentarily and hold for further instructions. Then she heard a muffled spitapp spitapp and then another one behind her followed with grunts and the sounds of a scuffle. Dee swiveled the copilot's chair around just in time to move out of the way as Clay and Fink slammed into it. The two men were scuffling over something that Fink had in his right hand.

Dee twisted past the two men and barely managed to avoid a clawing grasp from Fink's right hand. She lunged her body backward to avoid his grab just as Clay brought his forehead into Fink's face twice. Fink leaned back and shook his head as if to clear his vision just in time for Clay to follow up with another head-butt to the bridge of his nose, cracking it and sending blood streaming down his face.

Dee lost her balance and landed in her wingman's lap. As she recovered and pulled herself up, she said, "Sorry, Jay." But then realized that Jay felt not only quite limp, but wet. She looked over her shoulder at her friend. He had a blank stare in his eyes, and the right side of his head was blown completely out with gray matter and red blood streaming down his face and neck onto his shirt. Jay was dead. Dee screamed in horror and jumped up from his lap only to slam back into the two men fighting over a railpistol. The impact flung her back between the two rear seats, down on all fours.

Get a grip and protect yourself, Dee, Bree screamed in her mindvoice.

Right, Dee thought and shook herself.

The scuffle continued in a flurry of hand-to-hand jabs, knees, head-butts, and elbows between Fink and Dee's bodyguard. Spitapp, spitapp, spitapp, she heard again and stood to rush Fink.

"No, Dee!" Clay yelled at her. "Stay out of this."

"No way," she yelled back at him as she leaped forward in a bicycle roundhouse kick, bringing the top of her right foot hard against Fink's back. The kick stunned him only slightly, but it was enough for Clay to twist inside his grip, backward head-butt him in the face, and then pull Fink's elbow down against his shoulder. There was a loud crack. Fink's right elbow hyperextended the wrong way, and he let out a scream of pain.

Dee jumped up at him again and slammed her left knee into his ribs, brought her left elbow down on his collarbone but missed it, and then she gave him a right knee into his back as hard as she could.

"Get off my back, you little bitch!" Fink, bloodied and with his right arm broken at the elbow, somehow managed to squirm out of Clay's grip and pushed off his back, sandwiching Dee between him and the bulkhead. Dee's head slapped against the viewport so hard she saw stars and wobbled to her knees.

Dee was dazed but managed to make out that Clay had blood trickling from his lips. Then she realized that he had a red spot on his chest. He had been shot, too. Dee forced herself to her feet and shook the stars out of her eyes with the hopes of another assault on the crazed Fink. But even though Fink had a broken arm, he still managed to hold them off with blocks and kicks, and then out of nowhere came a knife. Clay managed to avoid it once by falling backward, but he had just lost too much strength from his wound, and Fink was soon on top of him.

Clay met Fink's lunge with both his arms, but Fink put all his body weight behind the knife. Clay couldn't hold him off much longer.

"The gun, Dee!" he managed to say as the blade of the knife inched closer to his throat.

Dee turned and scanned the deck of the shuttle wildly for the gun, but it was on the other side of the two men. Instead, she threw her body into Fink, knocking him over onto his right side. His broken arm rammed into the pedestal of the pilot's chair, and he screamed in agony. Clay managed to push him the rest of the way off him and kneed him in the groin. Unfortunately, Fink fell right on top of the railpistol. Seeing this, Clay pushed Dee backward into the bulkhead and rose between her and Fink just as the madman raised the weapon and fired. Spitapp, spitapp.

There was absolute quiet for a brief second. Dee looked into Clay's eyes, and he smiled at her with his big, toothy smile. Red poured from the corners of his mouth and off his tongue.

"Sorry, Dee . . ." He collapsed dead on the floor at her feet.

"What did you do?" Dee screamed and started at Fink but then quickly froze as she was staring at the barrel of the railpistol.

"Quiet!" Fink shouted at her while waving the pistol in her direction. "Don't you make a fucking move, or it will be your last. Now sit down! Turn back around in that chair and keep your hands up where I can see them."

Dee did what she was told. Fink carefully approached her, then grabbed her left arm and pulled it behind her chair with his good arm. She briefly thought of trying to overpower him, but Fink jammed the barrel of the railpistol into the side of her head. He winced in pain when he did it, but there was no doubt he could still pull the trigger.

"Don't even think about it." He then zip-tied her hand to the railing of the chair back and continued to do the same with her right hand.

"Why are you doing this, Fink? What do you hope to gain? You killed them. You killed Jay for no reason. You, k-k-killed Clay!" Tears ran down her cheeks. She and Jay had been classmates for years. They were wingmen, and at one point there had been some sexual interest. Now he was dead. She had known Clay since she had been six years old, and the man was one of her heroes. And for some reason this madman had just killed them both!

"Casualties of war, Dee."

"Don't call me that. You don't have the right to call me Dee or anything else, you fucking monster! My father will hunt you down to the ends of the galaxy if you harm me. He will rip your fucking eyeballs out!" Dee screamed at him uncontrollably. But Fink only laughed at her as if she were a silly little girl.

"It won't be me that he will go after, girly. I'm just a middleman. And in about ten minutes I'll be a very fucking rich middleman." Fink double-checked that Dee couldn't move. He pulled the ties tighter, and Dee could feel them cutting into her wrists.

Fink stepped back behind her and began rummaging through something in the back of the shuttle. Dee managed to swivel her chair, but as she did Fink brought the pistol up with his left hand. Once he realized she wasn't going anywhere, he set the pistol down and went about digging through the locker in the side panel of the shuttle. He finally found what he was looking for, apparently, and pulled it out with his good arm.

Bree, what do we do? Dee thought. Fink was preoccupied with something; now might be a chance to come up with a plan, or something, anything.

I'm searching for help, Dee, but we are a long way from home. I've contacted the governor's mansion, but got an odd response.

What do you mean?

They claim to no longer recognize U.S. authority.

This ain't good. Keep broadcasting my emergency signal. There has to be somebody out there that can help.

"Aha!" Fink pulled out a first-aid kit and popped the latch on it. "This will do."

He found an emergency hypo of immunoboost and peeled the plastic wrapper off with his left hand and his teeth. Holding the hypo up, he turned and glared at Clay's body and then jabbed the hypo in his neck. There was a quick hiss, and then he tossed the empty medicine tube on the deck. Then he felt about his right elbow with his left hand.

"Shit, at least it ain't broken. Just dislocated." He muttered to himself and then yanked his arm outward, popping the bones back in place. "Fuck!" he screamed.

"Well, come over here and I'll break it for you, if you like," Dee spat at him.

"You've got spunk, kid. I give you that much. Most kids in your position could be spoiled little worthless brats. But you're not. Oh, well, sometimes life is a meat grinder."

"You are a disgrace, Fink. A murdering goddamned disgrace and for certain not a U.S. Marine." Dee struggled against the chair briefly, until she realized that she wasn't going to pull free and was only cutting her bonds more deeply into her wrists. She screamed again in anger.

"Hey, haven't you heard the saying, 'Once a marine always a marine'?" Fink gave her an evil look.

"Yeah, well, apparently, it's just an expression, you piece of shit."

Daddy ain't gonna get a chance to kill this motherfucker, because I am so gonna rip his goddamned head off and shove it up his ass!

I hear you, Dee. You hang in there.