Jason nodded and left the room. He was tempted to go back and join Merritt for that drink; there wouldn’t be any flying for twelve hours. He thought for a moment of Svetlana, after all she was now on his ship, but pushed the thought aside; it was better to just let that pass. At the moment sleep seemed awfully tempting and he turned instead to go to his cabin. Before relaxing he settled into his chair and pulled up a flight line status report on his computer to check on the progress of repairs.
There was a knock at the door.
He groaned inwardly. The last thing he needed was someone else barging in wanting to talk.
“Enter.”
“I could come back later.”
He looked over his shoulder and felt the old heart skip again.
“Come on in, Svetlana.”
“I figured since we’d be taking this little cruise together, there was no sense in avoiding each other.”
She reached into a duffel bag and pulled out a bottle, two camouflaged field cups, and a corkscrew.
“Delighted,” Jason sighed, closing up his computer and pulling the one other chair in his office around for her to sit in.
She uncorked the bottle and poured out two drinks. A warm cinnamon smell filled the room.
“Got it in that Kilrathi palace. Can’t read the label, even our translator was stumped; for all I know it might be furniture polish, but here goes anyhow.”
She tilted the glass back.
Jason took a cautious sniff and then followed her lead. It hit like a sledgehammer and he felt his eyes water.
“Damn, those furballs sure can make a potent brew.”
“Another?”
Jason smiled and shook his head. “I think I’ll just nurse the rest of this one,” he gasped and she laughed softly.
They sat in awkward silence for nearly a minute. He found that he wasn’t really sure of what he should start talking about. Business? There’d be plenty of time later to go over the strike plans. The past? Far too dangerous. Damn, you couldn’t even lead off with the weather.
“I’m sorry about blowing on you the other day,” she finally ventured, “It’s just, well, Jason it took a long time to get over you, and then suddenly there you are, that damned boyish grin of yours. It tore me up.”
“It’s OK.”
There was another long silence.
“Do you like the marines?” he finally asked.
“Sure. They’re good. I wanted to be with the best. Since I couldn’t fly, I figured I’d pound the ground. I’m proud of them.”
“They’re a hell of a tough bunch.”
“What do you mean?”
He hesitated.
“Go on,” and she smiled.
“I just had one of your grunts, a woman no less, offer to sell me some Kilrathi ears.”
“So it turned you off. A little too brutal?”
“I thought we were fighting for some basic standards in life, and it struck me as something straight out of the middle ages. Though the Kilrathi might do it, we still play by certain rules, treat prisoners fairly and with respect, and non-combatants are off-limits. Hell, I put my career on the line once over that issue when I refused a direct order to dump a Kilrathi freighter loaded with women and children who wanted to surrender. I believe we can fight this war without becoming barbaric.”
“And what the hell else is war, a tea party?”
“You’re not following me.”
“For you it’s nice and clean—end of the mission you come back to white sheets, a hot meal, and a nice young, clean, and well-scrubbed ensign or lieutenant with stars in her eyes to warm your bed.”
She spit the words out angrily.
“You know it’s not like that at all.”
“I’ve been in sixteen landings,” Svetlana said, her voice suddenly sounding hollow. “Every friend I had in my first company died on what was to be my third assault. I was down wounded and missed that little jump on what was supposed to be a cold target. They said the landing craft covered a couple of square kilometers when the dust finally settled from the impact.”
“Wounded?”
She pointed at the thin scar across her temple and back to her ear. He realized it was a surgical cut and didn’t want to know what they had to go in for and dig out of her brain.
“In a typical landing we lose too much. And I’ve done it sixteen times. The last one you saw was a piece of cake. We lost ten percent and thought it was a joke. I’ve retaken four human worlds that the Kilrathi occupied. If you’d seen what I saw, you’d take ears too. You know what they did to the civilian population on Khosan? Jason, I was on the team that retook that place. You want a couple of details about what Kilrathi do to women and children?”
He shook his head, unable to reply for a moment. The holo images of the torture and massacre, filmed by a Kilrathi propaganda team, had been captured after the fight. It was sickening. And there was the other part about Khosan that hurt as well.
She looked at him and a pained look came over her features.
“I’m sorry, I forgot your brother was part of the defense team that got caught.”
“It’s all right,” Jason said quietly, “the letter said it was quick and clean.”
“Of course,” and her words were a bit too hurried, though sincere.
There were certain things in life that you clung to, even when you suspected they were lies. The letter to his mother from Joshua’s sergeant, which described a heroic death, cut down painlessly by a neutron blast, was one of them. He didn’t want to think of the alternative, the fact that his brother might have been taken alive.
“What has this war done to us?” Jason said sadly.
“It’s made us killers. As good as the Kilrathi. Maybe someday, those who come after us, maybe they’ll live a soft life of peace, grow up, stay in school, love music and art, fall in love, and never know fear. Maybe they can live by the standards you talk about. And the funny thing is, someday they’ll even forget about us, never knowing just how thin the line was between freedom and slavery.”
Her voice was filled with an infinite sadness.
“But for us?” she smiled. “You and I know what it’s done.”
“I wish it’d been different,” Jason said. “I mean, that we could have stayed together.”
She shook her head.
“I wanted to see action as much as you; the marines were a guarantee.”
She laughed softly.
“A real guarantee.”
Svetlana looked down into her drink for a moment and then back at Jason.
“Tell me honestly. If it was a choice now. If Tolwyn came along and said, ‘All right, Jason, you can take the girl and go home, but you’ll miss all the action,’ what would you do?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Liar.” She smiled again. “Once you’ve been in it, you can’t let go. I’m so scared about this next mission I can’t sleep. Hell, that’s why I’m drinking. But I wouldn’t miss a crack at their home world for anything.”
He nodded his head. He knew that he was as good as dead already, but just for once, it would be good to be able to give it to the Kilrathi, to hit them right in their own backyard, rather than this endless war on the frontiers. It was worth everything, and he knew he’d go nuts if he ever passed it up.
“So we’re in agreement then,” Svetlana said with a sigh, and she poured another drink, and then downed it.
“Maybe when the war is over,” Jason said quietly. “Maybe then we can make another try at it.”
“Old lover, when this war’s over, you and I will be dust.”
Her voice was hard and cold.
“You sound like a damned marine.”
“I am a damned marine and don’t forget it,” and there was a slight slurring to her voice. “You lousy blue suits look down on us like we’re animals or something, but you don’t know what it’s really like. Honey, if you ever saw war the way I have, you’d puke your guts out.”