The party was being held in the middle of the asteroid’s garden, with enough grassy areas and foliage to provide both open spaces and concealed areas for couples to snatch a little privacy. The majority of the asteroid’s settlers probably welcomed the party more than anyone else, although the inhabitants had probably realised that the presence of the Killer starship meant that they’d suddenly woken up to find themselves on the front lines. There was no reason why the Killers couldn’t reach Star’s End and the handful of Defence Force starships couldn’t hope to hold the line if they attacked. Chris privately suspected that the real reason the Footsoldiers had been kept at Star’s End was so that they could repeat their boarding feat with an antimatter bomb, although he doubted that that trick would work twice. The Killers had definitely been aware of the boarding party before the end.
He cast his gaze over one area of the garden and rolled his eyes. Seven girls — it might have been eight; it was hard to sort out the number of limbs — were rolling around on the grass together, completely naked. It was hardly an uncommon sight in an environment where Old Earth’s social taboos had largely faded away, but it struck him as disrespectful, somehow. All Footsoldiers knew that there was a chance that they could face permanent death out among the stars, yet few really believed that it could happen to them. They didn’t want to believe it. Chris had read all the military material that had survived the destruction of Earth, including tales so tall that he suspected that they had been exaggerated, and he couldn’t understand how the soldiers had managed to take such risks without even a chance at immortality. It beggared belief just how careless some of the Old Earth Generals had been with their men, but then, manpower had never been a problem for them. They hadn’t known how lucky they’d been.
There was a long table, completely groaning with food and drink, and he took a small plate, pausing to exchange polite compliments with some of the hosts. Star’s End, at least, didn’t belong to any of the Peace Factions or the Killer-Worshipping religions, neither of which would be happy to see a Footsoldier in uniform. The Peaceniks believed that if humanity didn’t provoke the Killers, they wouldn’t come and complete their task of exterminating the human race, while the religious nuts worshipped the Killers, seeing them as a modern-day Flood, or horde of locusts. Chris had no time for either set of beliefs. There was no evidence that the Killers were either inclined to leave the remainder of humanity alone, or ‘assist’ the human race further. They only seemed to exist to kill.
“You did well out there,” one of the researchers said, sipping something so strong that Chris could smell it even without his augmented senses. His own nanites were flushing out and countering the alcohol before it could really get into his system. It would be nice to get extremely drunk, but it would probably have resulted in a catastrophe. “Did you happen to notice…?”
Chris listened to the researcher go on, answering what questions he could — although most of them covered topics that had been explored in the debriefing sessions — and broke away from him as soon as he decently could. The researchers were fascinated by the Killer starship — and he supposed that at an intellectual level it was fascinating — but it was nothing, but an enemy to him. The entire starship had pulsed with a malign intelligence that had killed entire worlds and thought nothing of killing his men, even though their armour. He wanted a weapon that would blow right through the alien ships and freedom to use it, not kind words. The scientists complained about the damage the Footsoldiers had caused as they fled towards the Killer’s chamber and their final stand.
“You’re looking lost,” a voice said, from behind him. He turned, wondering if the drink had dulled his senses anyway, despite the nanites, to see Paula. She wore a simple blue cocktail dress and a look that, he wryly acknowledged, probably matched his expression. It was easy to see, now, that she was baseline human. There were no unsightly modifications to her body. “Want to come sit with me instead?”
Chris smiled and allowed her to lead him out of the crowd and up towards a more private area somewhere within the jungle. The asteroid’s AI had just left the jungle to grow almost at random, then created paths through the tangle to allow humans to explore a shadow of a real world. It was easy to forget — thanks to sound-dampening fields — that there were entire crowds only bare metres away. It was as private as one could get in the garden.
“Thanks,” he said, relieved. She probably wasn’t offering sex, part of his mind reluctantly decided, but he was more than grateful for the save. “I was going mad in there.”
“Me too,” Paula said. They found a patch of dry grass and sat down, disturbing a pair of bees and forcing them to buzz away. The AI maintained the ecology and included as many savaged forms of life from Earth as it could. It was a shame that it was impossible to recreate so many dead animals from Earth. Chris would have given anything to see a real tiger. “I don’t… surely that isn’t how you plan to say farewell to your fellow Footsoldiers.”
“Hardly,” Chris said, shaking his head. They’d already held a private ceremony, but it wasn’t something he could share with a civilian, even one who had been with them on the mission. It was a private Footsoldier tradition that helped to bind the teams together. “We’ll bid them farewell in our own way and try to forget that this… ceremony ever happened. Did they have you on the outside?”
Paula nodded. “Not something I want to do again,” she admitted. Chris wasn’t surprised. Funerals were never decent occasions… and as for that crazy preacher, well, he wanted a few words with whoever had selected him. What was wrong with a more standard farewell? “And you?”
“Inside looking out,” Chris said. In fact, he’d been trying to get his dress uniform on and failing miserably. The only redeeming feature of the uniform was that it encouraged teamwork. “I would have traded places in a heartbeat.”
“Lucky you,” Paula said, dryly. “Tell me something. Why are you still here?”
“You didn’t tell me to go,” Chris said, and then understood. “You mean at Star’s End? I don’t know. The Admiral seems to have decided that we are to remain here to provide you researchers with the benefit of our experience in the enemy starship and perhaps provide security if required. The location of the captured ship should be a secret, but with the MassMind around hardly anything is secret these days.”
Paula nodded. “True,” she agreed, “but I can’t believe that the MassMind would betray the human race.”
Chris snorted. “If the Killers should happen to listen in to the MassMind and its thoughts, or even our communications, they could be led right here without any intention of betrayal at all,” he reminded her, dryly. The security issues had been hammered into his head repeatedly. It wasn’t helped that no one knew just what the Killers could actually do. In theory, no one could tap into quantum entanglement fields, but in practice… no one knew for sure. “It’s just a routine precaution.”
“I know,” Paula said. She looked over at him suddenly. “Answer me another question. Why are you Footsoldiers all men?”
“Tradition,” Chris said. It had struck him as odd before he joined up — every other post in the Defence Force was determined by ability, not gender — but after his induction he understood the reasoning. “Just after the Killing of Earth, the first Footsoldier units were formed from men only, because men were more expendable than women. The tradition just continued into the present day. Some of my men are actually women who changed themselves into men just to join up.”