The silence that followed was a long one. Michael was the first to speak. “That’s it. It’s over,” he said, his voice flat, emotionless. “There’s nothing more you can do now, Erica, so you’d better go. But thanks for everything.”
“Oh, Michael,” Malvern whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Just go, Erica.”
Malvern looked at him for a moment, nodded, and then was gone, leaving Michael alone. “Fuck them all,” he muttered. He wondered why he felt so strangely calm. He’d always done his duty as he saw it, and if that wasn’t good enough, then so be it. Even looking back, he would not change anything.
The door behind him opened. “Come on,” the guard said. “Let’s get you back.”
Michael nodded. “Sure, Sergeant Valek,” he said. Michael liked Valek; the man had always treated him with respect. With the nearly absolute power the guards had over him, he need not have.
“We’ve heard the news,” Valek said when they got to his cell. “I just wanted to say … how sorry we all are. It’s not right, and I know I speak for everyone in the corps.”
Michael shook his head, confused. So far as he knew, Sergeant Valek had never been anywhere near the marines. “The corps?” he said. “I don’t follow.”
“Both of my brothers are marines. We talk a lot. They’ve told me what you did for the guys at Devastation Reef.”
“That was a while ago.”
“I know it was, but they tell me that the corps does not forget. Anyway, I need to go. Captain Pillai will be along in an hour to talk to you.”
“Okay, and thanks. It helps.”
“Not as much as I’d like,” Valek said.
“Bad business,” Pillai said as he walked into the cell.
“You should see it from where I’m sitting.”
The man smiled and shook his head. “Before we get started,” Pillai went on, “I’d like to say that Sergeant Valek was right. And it’s not just the Marine Corps that’s pissed. I don’t know many people who agree with what’s happening. I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but I do know the Hammers are behind this.”
“Should you be saying that?” Michael said with a worried frown. “Everything’s recorded.”
“Let me worry about that,” Pillai said. “The powers that be have bigger problems on their plate right now.”
“They do?”
“Let me see … Yes, at last count, 372 marine officers have resigned their commissions to protest the president’s decision. And there are more from Space Fleet, apparently, though the news channels aren’t saying how many. But I bet they won’t be the last. If this government thinks it can get away with this, then they’re stupider than they look.”
Michael was shocked into silence; tears pricked at his eyes as emotion washed through him. This he had not expected. “What can I say?” he said. He wiped his eyes.
“You don’t need to say a thing. I just hope it helps.” Pillai took a deep breath. “Time for business, I’m afraid. You’ll leave for Farrisport in two days’ time. Once you are there, you will be briefed on what happens … you know …”
Michael did know; he’d thought of nothing else. He took a deep breath to steady himself. “What about visits? I want to see my folks.”
“We’ll arrange for them to fly to Farrisport. You’ll be able to spend as much time with them as you want, right up until the end.”
Sunday, December 7, 2403, UD
Foundation City, Terranova planet
Michael sat slumped in his seat, head back and eyes closed, as the suborbital shuttle carrying him and his ten-strong escort of heavily armed guards-talk about overkill, Michael had thought when they’d fallen in around him-rocketed down the runway and climbed away from Foundation City. The flight to Farrisport promised to be a long one. Michael tried to force himself to sleep, but sleep refused to come, the minutes dragging past second by miserable second.
Michael emerged from the shuttle into a hellish night.
The wind drove thick flurries of snow into his face. The cold was intense. It sliced through his prison jumpsuit; his eyes watered with icy tears. Captain Pillai and his team escorted him to where a mobibot waited on the floodlit apron. So this is where my life ends, Michael thought as he was led into the welcome warmth of the vehicle.
With a lurch, the mobibot set off. A few minutes later, it stopped, and Michael was fed into the Farrisport machine, the latest in a long line of prisoners that stretched back to the earliest days of the Federation.
An hour later, the machine was satisfied that Michael was who he was supposed to be. Deep scanned for contraband, checked for disease and injury, and dressed in a new jumpsuit, he was spit out by the machine into a cell no different from the one he had left behind. He dropped onto the bunk, tired beyond belief.
“You have a visitor,” the intercom announced. “Stand up and wait back from the door.”
With a huge effort, Michael got to his feet. The door opened, and a prison service colonel, iron-gray hair cut short above a comfortable round face, stepped in. Her crisp blue uniform was stark against the white sterility of the cell. “I’m Colonel Kallewi,” she said. She waved the guards out. “I’m the superintendent of Farrisport Island Prison.”
“Wish I could say it was good to meet you, sir,” Michael said with a fleeting lopsided smile. Then it hit him hard enough to make his heart pound. “Forgive me,” he went on, “but Kallewi? Are you any relation to the commander of my marine detachment in Redwood?”
“Yes, I am,” Kallewi said, her voice soft. “Janos was my son.”
Michael’s stomach turned over. This he had not expected. “You’ve heard … you know?”
“I received notification that he’d been killed in action, yes.”
“I was his captain,” Michael said. Kallewi’s dignity in her grief made his guilt all the worse. “I was responsible for his being on Commitment. It was … I’m so sorry.”
Kallewi said nothing for a moment. “Don’t be,” she said finally. “I won’t say his death has been easy to bear. It hasn’t, but Janos was his own man, and he made his own decisions. And he died doing his duty the best way he could, and I won’t stand here and tell you or anyone else that he was wrong about that. But I would like to know more of what happened. It would help me and his father.”
“Of course.”
“Tonight at 20:00 if that’s okay.”
“I don’t think I’m going anywhere,” Michael said with a crooked smile.
“Not sure about that.”
Michael stared at the woman. What on earth does she mean by that? he asked himself.
Kallewi took a deep breath before continuing. “Now, back to business,” she said. “There’ll be a full briefing for you at 09:00 tomorrow morning on the execution protocol-” Michael flinched; he couldn’t help himself. “-and your parents will be arriving at 12:00. You can see them for as long and as often as you wish, though their last visit will have to finish no later than 02:00 on the day.”
Six hours, Michael thought. I will be utterly alone for the last six hours of my life.
“That’s all for now,” Kallewi went on. “Any questions?”
“None worth asking.”
“Okay. I will see you later.”
“Sir.”
“Sit,” Kallewi said, waving Michael into a seat across a small metal table from her. “Can I call you Michael?” she went on once his escort had left.
“Of course, sir,” Michael replied. He was both embarrassed and surprised by the question. In his experience, colonels, even prison service colonels, weren’t on first-name terms with junior officers.
“Bear with me a second,” Kallewi said. She placed a small silver cube on the table.
Michael stared at the cube to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. He wasn’t. He was looking at a near-field jammer; there would be no digital record of anything said or done in this room. Michael did not know much about prison service regulations, but he would have bet what little was left of his life that the device had no business inside Farrisport. “Colonel, forgive me,” he said, “but what’s going on? I’m pretty sure this thing-” He pointed at the cube. “-is not allowed in here.”