There was some laughter, and the conversation moved on. Captain Bill left to deal with something on the bridge, and officers began leaving the mess in ones and twos. Even as they cleared out, Beckham remained, leaning heavy on the table, clearly quite drunk. His friend Turner asked if he needed anything and was waved off, and soon the mess was empty save for me, everyone else going off to socialize in smaller groups or back to their quarters to sleep off the booze. Not knowing what exactly I was supposed to be doing, I remained in my seat until it was just the two of us.
I guess it was up to me.
"Miles, are you quite alright? You seem particularly out of it." I asked. He shrugged dismissively, still leaning against the table.
"I suppose. I don't do well in transit, feeling cooped up and such." he said, "I hate not having anything to do."
"... you have no idea the degree to which I relate to that." I said, "Rather machine-like thing to say, really."
"Beep boop, Fusie, beep fucking boop." Beckham muttered, checking his glass for the fifth time as if to check if more gin had materialized. "Did machines ever beep? Where did that come from?"
"No idea. Don't really know much about history or anything." I admitted, "Only really started paying attention recently. Just sort of knew humans were struggling until we lent a hand."
"Struggling… it's a good word for it. Great bloody mass of people struggling with a boot to their neck. Said boot belonging to the people at the top living in luxury." he said, the distaste on his voice. "People who looked like us, you know."
"Us?" I asked, a little curious.
"Fine. Like me. Bunch of pale men in red coats, sitting in fancy wooden rooms sipping expensive booze and carving up the world. Little bit of India, tip of Africa, as much of the Americas as we could get our hands on. And we probably would've gone on to take more, I'll bet."
"That's… Earth history. All of it's like that, isn't it? Desperate, scared people clawing at each other. Cruelty driven by fear, which makes the small human kindnesses all the more remarkable." I said. It was sad, it really was. I think I read somewhere in a newspaper that when they asked machines what they wanted more than anything, the most common answer was I wish we could have been invented earlier.
"You ever been to Earth?" he asked, and I shook my head. Never even been close. "Went when I was a kid with my dad. Saw all that stuff in the museums, cannons and guillotines and manacles. Flying shuttle looms and cotton gins. Toured old battlefields where tens of thousands of people died, saw factories we used to lock children inside. Bastard wanted me to be proud that we'd come so far, but now, I look back at it and just think by God, I'm glad somebody stopped us."
We sat, a moment, in that awkward silence.
"It wasn't just us, you know." I said, "You had to build us. You had to want us. I think everyone did, when it came down to it. I can't imagine there's ever been somebody who looked at all the suffering and didn't wish it was another way, even if they couldn't imagine how it could be better. Somebody just figured it out in one go."
He settled back against his seat heavily, looking me over with a critical eye. I didn't know how human brains worked, but I could only imagine the cooling fans speeding up as he maxed his CPU. Just squishier.
"Why are you always so bloody nice to me?" he asked finally, "I've been a complete ass to you ever since we met."
"As best I can tell, you've been a complete ass to everyone you've ever crossed paths with." I pointed out, "But… I was expecting that, and worst, from the other officers. The fact you've been the worst I've had to put up with from the officers has been a relief, frankly."
"I'm glad I could exceed your lowest expectations." he said, and we both couldn't help but laugh a little about that. "Don't know if it's a great foundation for a friendship, though."
"Well, that's okay." I said, still chuckling, "If we machines are good at anything, it's putting up with humans not being perfect yet."
I left Beckham in the capable hands of his valet Jim soon after and retired to my cabin, flopping down heavily on the mattress. Luckily, transport of machines was apparently accounted for in these quarters, because there was a plug hanging from a cable above my head, swaying slightly as the ship rocked against the solar winds.
Didn't feel quite like sleeping like.
"Miriam, is there a library or something on the ship?" I asked. I didn't know where she was, but I had a feeling she was in earshot of me, and sure enough she popped her head through the door a moment later.
"Yes, there's a small one. Would you like a book?" she asked.
"Yes. Something modern, lighthearted if you would. Don't know if I'm in the mood for any historicals." I said. I could get my own books, of course, but Miriam knew better than I what was good on the shelf. And it was better than letting her go stir-crazy.
"Right away, miss."
---
The second day, fortunately, the winds turned and we were on our way at a fast clip, fast enough that the nearest stars were beginning to roll past the window, visibly moving as I watched. I spent most of the second day sitting on my bed with some light music, working my way through a sizable portion of the ship's library. I took breaks to find productive work, taking advantage of a sparring ring I discovered in the lower sections of the officer's deck to practice my swordsmanship and discovering (to my joy) some unfinished paperwork.
That aside, mostly the day passed reading through the tiny library's supply of romantic dramas, occasionally glancing out the window, watching the water building up on the sails run down the windows like rain. I'll say this: the women in these novels managed to feel more intensely about small gestures, the contents of polite letters, and pleasant dinner conversation than I think I have on most battlefields, and it is a very good thing I am not one of the Marias because I promise you some of these men would not make it out of the estate intact.
I skipped dinner, but Miriam came to me soon after with an invitation from Beckham to join in a card game he was putting together with a few of the other officers. This turned out to include Turner, Kennedy, and to my surprise Ensign Sumner, who had bugged him at the dinner table until the invitation was extended.
The game was poker, and the buy-in was a princely three pence. I had neither played cards nor gambled ever in my life, so I was unsurprisingly obliterated by the more experienced players. Who, in turn, fell victim to Ensign Sumner, who claimed her mother would sit down with her every night and tutor her at poker, whist, and a variety of other games.
"Good lord, she's cleaning us out." Turner said, staring in disbelief at the latest hand. "I'm devastated."
"This game really isn't difficult, I think you just need to practice more. Again?" she asked, sweeping her ill-gotten coin into her hands.
"At this point I think it'd be faster just to pay you." Kennedy said numbly. "I was good at this. I used to win all the time back in school."
"I'm always game to lose more money. You'd think Fusie would be better at this, but she gives the game away on her face every time. Which is remarkable given how little of it moves." Beckham pointed out.
"I'm new at this!" I protested, "... the refrain of my life these past few weeks."
"You seem to be doing alright." Kennedy pointed out, and Turner laughed.
"Better than us, sometimes. Showing up with a date at the Duke's, rather embarrassing for the rest of us."
"She was cool." Sumner agreed simply, taking the cards and shuffling them at lightning speeds. "Come on, one more!"
We all grumbled and threw more pennies into the pot for her to inevitably collect.
"Did you know her before you jumped up, Fusie? Like… stars, are you secretly married or anything?" Turner asked, looking at me askew. "I'm just realizing I have no idea. You could be like, a century into a relationship or something, couldn't you?"
"I'm only thirty-three." I said, "And no, it was a bit of a rush arrangement. Our first outing."
"What's she like? I barely saw her." Kennedy asked, voice a little quiet, and Beckham broke in.
"Ooh, let me answer. Her name is Beatrice Taylor, her job is Beatrice Taylor, and she enjoys working very much and little else." he declared, grinning foolishly. With great precision, I bounced a penny off the top of his head from the other side of the table.
"She's a writer, actually, and she's very nice. Why are we talking about this?" I asked.
"Interrogating one's fellows about their romantic escapades is a time-honoured tradition." Turner said sagely. "We'd expect you to do the same for us."
Well, if it was tradition, fair enough. Came with the station.
"What does she write?" Sumner asked, dealing out the cards with a practiced ease.
"Ah… she writes romances aimed at machine readers." I said, taking a look at my hand. I knew the numbers ought to be Good, and these numbers were very much Bad. "Urgh… I haven't had a chance to read one myself, but I understand she's quite popular."
"... the idea of a machine romance strikes me as somewhat incongruous." Turner said, "Like, I understand it's a thing that happens, but I can't rightly picture it."
"I'm not sure you should be trying to picture it, old boy. At least not in public." Beckham said, and Sumner broke down into loud laughter of such intensity she sank from view, slipping out of her chair.
"Miles, try not to kill my ensign." I muttered, looking at my cards despairing.
"Not exactly a lot to picture, I'd think?" Turner said, clearly thinking aloud. "If you understand my meaning."
"You'd think that, yes, but you would be very much surprised." Beckham said, and I suddenly rather wished this conversation would end and we could get back to fleecing me of my pay. He leaned close to Turner to whisper 'discreetly', but I quite clearly heard him say "They customize."
"Good Lord." Turner replied, a look of stark disbelief on his face. "Do they really?"
"Oh my God." Kennedy said, a look I could only imagine was horror crossing her face.
"Can we please talk about literally anything else?" I asked, as Sumner climbed back to her seat, still wheezing.
"Sorry, I missed that… where were we?"
"Playing cards." I said insistently.
---
For all that the card game was incredibly mortifying, it did remind me of the conversation I'd had with Beatrice the night before I left. Further… we did have our regimental engineer on board. She even had a workshop on the ship, and inquiring while we still had two days travel ahead of us was likely a better idea than doing so on the return journey when there might be wounded Theos and Doras in need of attention, right?
So… I perhaps paid the workshop a visit, and worked out a plan to pay her back over time in exchange for some, um. Improvements. Just basic ones. Bea would probably appreciate it when I got back. Very fortunately, the workshop had all the necessary tools.
And if nothing else, it ate up some boring travel time.
I took a few test laps around the ship's passageways to make sure nothing had broken, and I began to notice a distinct change in the energy of the ship. Sailors were busying themselves moving what I thought might be degaussing gear, and more than once I had to step aside to let somebody through carrying some strange naval device. I could only imagine this buzz of activity meant we were approaching the system, and I was eager.
At dinner that night, Major Gaynesforth indeed reported we'd be coming in to the system within just a few hours, and then navigating in-system to the planet. Initial sensor sweeps of the area by our escort indicated it was empty of any other ships, so we likely wouldn't face interception, and continuous signal lights indicated that, thankfully, the dig site hadn't been overrun, though they were apparently still being attacked in the night.
We had, from these exchanges, our first description of our potential enemies: they were known to be humanoid, slightly bigger than a human, with some sort of helmet or crest on their heads, and they carried a firearm of some description which fired a beam of energy. This was cause of some concern: while we'd encountered automatons and such with similar body plans to our own, and there was no particular reason to believe they'd be generally more or less likely to be independently intelligent than other forms of alien life, anthropomorphization was a powerful force.
"Lieutenant Colonel Harrison is increasingly of the opinion that the dig site has disturbed some form of local life, with an even split between them being leftover defenders or genuine native intelligences. Our primary mission is still to get the archeology team safely off the world and secure this gateway, but we're going to have to use a light touch until we understand what's going on." Major Gaynesford explained to us over dinner. "To that end, we're on stunners only until he gives the word, and preferably we avoid being forced into an engagement at all."
"Even if they engage us first?" asked one of the other officers, Lieutenant Forrest from the Grenadiers.
"Yes, absolutely. If we're inadvertently trespassing, it won't do to make it that much worse by killing the poor bastards." he said. "That said… please don't get yourselves killed doing the noble thing. If they've got you cornered, defend yourself."
"Be sort of a let down if genuine first contact broke down into a firefight, wouldn't it?" Turner commented, "Rather hard to live that one down."
There was some scattered, nervous chuckles from the assembled officers.
The ship arrived early on the forth morning, having caught some fortunate winds the day previous. I was awoken by the ship's bell, and glancing out my window I saw llomia J3H for the first time as we came into orbit, slowly growing in the window. It didn't really have discreet continents, instead being a sort of murky green-blue indicating many tens of thousands of small lakes and marshland throughout the world. As I dressed, an unmistakable red flare sprang into being in the world's upper atmosphere, a signaling rocket to guide us in.
The officers gathered in the hold and we got organized for landing in the hold. Cleared of power cables, divider walls, and hammocks, the hold became a staging floor where almost three hundred machines packed in close formation, a great deal of shouting from officers and NCOs as we tried to get everything in order to move. The ship had ten lighters lining the side to bring us to the planet, each big enough to carry a section, with Kennedy's artillery and the supply wagons taking up the rest. I gathered up our group and shuffled them into the narrow space: officers always got in last.
I took a moment, then, to look at something I'd never really had a chance to see before, the hold of the transport utterly empty and silent as the last artillery piece rolled up its ramp. I waved to Kennedy across the bay, and we climbed into our lighters, leaving the transport behind.
There were crash seats lining the sides, and in between at our feet went as many supplies as we could safely put in. These landers were supposed to be able to be used to drop soldiers directly onto battlefields, but I don't think they ever have and I doubt they'd be much use in the role. Filing out two at a time from a small ramp sounds less like an efficient entry into combat and more like a very good place to get funneled to our deaths.
Once the hatch was sealed, we had no way of knowing what was happening around us. The hold was lit by nothing but a row of flickering holographic candles, in red to preserve our night vision, the flames wavering as the lighter detached from the hull and we all felt the strange lurch of its acceleration away from the transport. Reentry was uncharacteristically smooth, with only about five minutes or so of chopping flying (Kelly laughed and cheered the whole way, while Sumner looked very much on the edge of vomiting), and then we were finally gliding toward our landing site, a clearing some five miles away from the base camp. Only the Grenadiers were landing directly at the camp, the rest of us needed a larger assembly area.
I was counting down the seconds in my head until we ought to land when suddenly there was a great jolt in the lighter. I had learned over the years that such things are only worrying if they seem to worry the crew, but when I glanced to the chief by the ramp his eyes were wide and he was gripping the crash netting for dear life. There was another jolt, and this time I undid my belt and climbed to the small pilot's compartment just ahead of the hold, where two machines were holding the esoteric controls that guided the glider through the sky.
"What's happening?" I asked, and one of them glanced back with a fearful expression.
"Something took a shot at us, ma'am! Go sit down!"
Well, that was concerning. I shuffled back to my seat, belted in, and then raised my voice above the clackering.
"Right, Theos and Doras! Something just took a shot at us, so when we land, I want a loose formation around the lighter immediately! Be ready for action, but stay on stun, and don't fire unless fired upon, I don't want to shoot our comrades in the muck!"
Just moments later, the lighter touched down, hard. We decelerated rather more quickly than I was expecting, slammed into our crash seats, and then the rear ramp dropped with a sort of wet splat. Immediately, the smell of sulfur filled the compartment, and I was suddenly very, very glad I could turn off my sense of smell.
The first machines came down the ramp, up to their ankles in muddy water, and I waited for ten to go before heading down the ramp myself. I had to lead and get a good read of the situation, which I couldn't do if I had my head blown off. I emerged from under the lighter's foil tail to a large, flat wet plain, with clumps of long, yellow-green grass dotting the landscape. Another lighter down the field was landing and I could see a tracked horse roll out into the mud, and I turned to the nearest treeline, scanning for threats as soldiers fanned out with guns at the ready.
Over the canopy I could see another of our transports coming in low, highlighted against the dull yellow sky. There was a sort of purple strobe chasing it, then something connected and the whole lighter bucked in the air and started descending faster, a horrible tear through the foil of its leading wing. With a crash, it plowed through the tree about a hundred meters from our position, water spraying up around it.
Well… we knew where the threat was now, at least.
"B-section! Close order line, between the lighter and the treeline! I want the revolver cannons up!" I called, guiding them through as the engine came down the ramp shakily. "Kelly, Sumner, hold the troops here! I need four machines with me!"
The next four privates to emerge from the lighter formed up behind me, and I led them quickly across the open ground toward the crashed lighter without a second thought. I did make sure to check my gorget to make sure my force screen was working, though it clearly was from the teal sparks running off the water as we wadded our way over. It was a long, slow way to go over open ground, but somebody had to.
The lighter had shed both its wings and partially rolled, lying nearly on its side. Most concerningly, smoke was pouring out of its engine unit, threatening fire, and the ramp looked well seized in place by the buckling of the frame, the hydraulics whining. After unsuccessfully trying to get it loose with the outer handles, I drew my sword and thumbed it to level three, the white blade leaping into existence, and dragged the tip through the outer edge of the doorframe.
With a snap, the door popped free as the tension was released, and we got clear as it started lowering. I glanced in to see members of 2nd company inside, Major Gaynesfield propped up against the back wall looking a little stunned and bleeding from the forehead.
"Major, you were struck by ground fire…" I said, the troops pushing out around us. His aide helped him up and he came over as I sheathed my sword, but then as he reached the ramp he glanced out, seeing my section braced with guns pointing out toward the treeline.
"Lieutenant! What the hell are you doing!" he suddenly snarled, his aide suddenly returning to dab at the blood on his forehead with a wet cloth. "Get back to your section!"
Feeling a sudden, horrified realization wash over me, I turned and ran back, extremely aware the entire time how much dead ground I was covering again on the way back, and how incredibly stupid the mistake I'd just made was. I should have moved the entire company over to cover us. Or simply waited and provided overwatch while they got out on their own, as I had provided nothing they didn't already have, and were they all somehow unconscious my four machine unit would have been of little help. The whole time, I'd left the fifty members of my section in the hands of two sixteen year olds with hardly a month's experience between them.
I could see Sergeant Theda glaring at me from her position at the line, the look in her eyes saying it all.
