Dawes’s smile was cooler now.
“I want you to understand that I know every action that was taken on the station. Every order. Every shot fired, and from what gun. I know everything about that assault, and so does half the Belt. You’re famous out here.”
“You’re the one who asked what happened,” Fred said, shrugging as best he could with bound, numb arms.
“No, Colonel. I asked what happened to you.”
General Jasira’s private office was decorated like somebody’s idea of a British gentleman’s club. The furniture was all dark oak and darker leather. The heavy desk smelled like lemons and tung oil. The pen set and globe of Earth on top of it were both made of brass. The bookshelves were filled with real paper books and other souvenirs from a long lifetime of constant travel. There wasn’t an electronic device more complex than a lamp anywhere in sight. If it weren’t for the 0.17 lunar gravity, there would be no way to know it wasn’t an office in London in the early twentieth century.
The general was waiting for him to speak first, so Fred swirled the scotch in his glass instead, enjoying the sound the ice made and the harsh smell of the liquor. He drained it in one swallow, then set it back on the desktop in front of him, an invitation to be refilled.
As Jasira put another two fingers into it, he finally gave up on waiting. He said, “I imagine you’ve had some time to review the video the terrorists transmitted from Anderson.”
Fred nodded. He’d guessed this was the reason for the after-hours invitation. He tried another sip of scotch, but it had taken on a sour taste, and he put it back down.
“Yes, sir, I have. We were jamming radio all the way in, as per protocol, but we didn’t detect that little tightbeam relay they’d left—”
“Fred,” Jasira interjected with a laugh. “This isn’t an inquisition. You aren’t here to apologize. You did good, Colonel.”
Fred frowned, picked his glass up, then put it back down without taking a drink.
“Then to be frank, sir, I wonder what I am here for.”
Jasira leaned back in his chair.
“A couple of little things. I saw your request for an investigation into the negotiation team’s work. The declassification of the negotiation transcripts. That surprised me.”
As he spoke, Jasira rolled his shoulders, though in the moon’s fractional gravity they could hardly be tense. He must have spent a lot of time dirtside, and the habits died slow.
“Sir,” Fred said, speaking slowly and picking his words carefully, “because of the relay, the public has already seen the battle footage. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle. But no one seems to want to talk about the tightbeam they sent to us at the end there. We—”
“And how will this information change anything? You did your job, soldier. The negotiation team did theirs. End of story.”
“As it stands, sir, the people who took Anderson look like they’re insane, and we look like executioners,” Fred said, then stopped when he realized his voice was getting loud. Quieting down, he said, “There was some kind of mistake. That second message makes it clear that they thought they’d surrendered. A lot of people died over that miscommunication.”
Jasira smiled, but there was no humor in it.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You barely lost anybody,” the general said. “Anyway, the request’s denied. We have no reason to do any investigation on this matter. The battle footage is out, and as it stands that works in our favor. The simpler the message is, the more people will understand it: Take one of our stations, and we take it back. Hard. We can only confuse the issue by turning it political.”
“Sir,” Fred said, all warmth gone from his voice. “I killed 173 armed insurgents and over a thousand civilians in this action. You owe it to those people—you owe it to me—to show we did the right thing. What if we can avoid this happening next time?”
“There isn’t going to be a next time,” the general said. “You’re the one who saw to that.”
“Sir, you’re making it seem very much like this wasn’t a mistake at all. Who gave the order to ignore their surrender and send me in? Was it you?”
Jasira shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You did what we needed you to do. We won’t forget that.”
Fred looked at his hands. He rose to his feet, a little too quickly, bouncing in the low g, and snapped a sharp salute. Jasira poured himself another glass of scotch and drank it off, leaving Fred standing as he did.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
Jasira gave him a long, resigned look.
“They’re giving you the Medal of Freedom.”
Fred’s arm turned limp, and his salute collapsed under its own weight.
“What?” was all he could manage to say.
“I’m going back down the well. I’m too old to suck vacuum anymore. They’ll pin you with the UN Marines highest honor, then shortly thereafter give you your first star. You’ll have a seat here at OPCOM before the year is out. Try to look happy about it.”
The silence stretched. Fred focused hard on nothing about ten feet in front of him. Dawes watched him for almost a full minute, then gave up.
“All right. Why don’t I start, then?” Dawes said. “Here’s what happened. You were sleeping with one of the marines. Keeping it quiet because you were the commander, and that’s a no-no, right? So you’re very careful taking the station. You keep your casualties low, but you don’t get lucky and your lover dies.”
Fred kept his face stony and still. Dawes leaned back, resting on one long, thin arm like he was lounging under a tree in some sunlit park.
“You can’t get the usual psychological support,” Dawes went on, “because that would mean exposing the relationship, and you’re still ashamed of it. You have a little breakdown. You end up knocking around OPA bars hoping someone’ll kill you.”
Fred didn’t respond. His legs were past numb now and starting to hurt. Dawes grinned. He seemed to be enjoying this.
“No?” the OPA man said. “Don’t like that one? All right. How about this? Before you joined up with the Marines, you were a troubled kid. Did all kinds of bad things. Wild. Joining up is what straightened you out. Made you into the staunch, upright, legal, and appropriate guy you are today. But then the Anderson Station broadcast comes out. A bunch of people from your past see the feed and someone recognizes you. You come back a hero, but there’s a sting in it. You’re being blackmailed for… mmm. How about rape? Or, no. Drug trafficking. You used to cook tabs of grace in your dorm room, sell it at the clubs. Now it’s come back to haunt you, and you have a little breakdown. And you end up knocking around OPA bars hoping someone’ll kill you.”
Dawes waved a hand in front of Fred’s eyes.
“Still with me, Colonel? Don’t like that one either? All right. Maybe you’ve got a sister who came up the well, and you lost track of her—”
“Why don’t you save your fucking air,” Fred growled. “Whatever you’re here for, do it and be done.”
“Because why matters, Colonel. Why always matters. Whatever your story is, I know how it ends. It ends with you, here, talking to me. That’s the easy part, and I think you’re here looking for easy.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
The woman with the rifle said something. Either her Belter patois was too accented and fast or it was some OPA verbal code because Fred couldn’t even cut the flow of syllables into individual words. Dawes nodded, took his hand terminal out of a pocket and keyed something in. Fred leaned forward, trying to get the blood flow back into his legs. Dawes put the hand terminal away.