He had Hector connect him to Jax’s direct line. “Jax, I need you to start pulling your people back. We’ve got most of the corps evac’d, and the rest of the rearguard isn’t going to hold for much longer.”
There was nothing…no response, only silence. “Jax, do you read?” Still silent. “Jax?” Cain switched to the command frequency for Jax’s force. “Jax, do you read me?”
There was a response this time, after a brief pause, but it wasn’t the voice Cain was expecting. “This is Major Killian, sir.” As soon as Cain heard the major’s voice he knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong. “General Jax was hit a few minutes ago.” There was another pause, and Cain’s stomach clenched and he felt the breath sucked from his body. “He’s dead, sir.”
Chapter 29
Cain stood on the observation deck in his dress blues. The occasion was a somber one. Marines die, they were used to that. But it still hurt to lose one of their own.
They were gathered to bid farewell to a hero of the Corps. Lieutenant General Darius Jax had survived some of the most horrific battles in human history, but finally one of those fights had claimed him.
Cain could never quite piece together exactly how Jax fell. He was leading the rearguard, holding the enemy at the gap while the rest of 1 st Corps conducted a fighting withdrawal. By most accounts, it was one of the Reapers that hit him. Cain didn’t know if his friend had died right away or lingered in pain and fear. But there was no doubt he was dead…his people had carried him back, and Cain had seen for himself.
I Corps barely made it off-planet, and they’d lost heavily in doing it. In the end it was the Janissaries who held off the enemy while Cain’s exhausted people boarded the shuttles. Commander Farooq finally convinced Cain to deploy his forces, and his men fought grimly, holding the line at every point until they were the only ones left on Farpoint. By the time they boarded they’d lost 80% of their number…and Erik Cain had changed his opinion on old enemies.
It fell to Cain to give the eulogy. Jax had been his best friend, his comrade in arms through a lifetime of war. They had been closer than brothers. There was no one Cain trusted more than he had Jax…indeed, there were few he trusted at all, and the loss of his faithful companion had wounded him deeply, in ways he would let no one see. He dreaded speaking publicly about his friend – Cain was one to mourn silently. But Darius Jax deserved a tribute, and it was his obligation to his lost comrade, one he took seriously.
Cain was a legend in the Corps, and his Marines would follow him anywhere, but Jax had been different. He was a legend in his own right, but he had also enjoyed a special relationship with his troops. Cain was respected and revered…almost worshipped by the Marines he commanded. They would follow him anywhere without hesitation, but he was too coldly analytical, too insular for them to truly love. But they had loved Jax. He had been one of them, an enlisted man with stars on his collar. Among themselves, his Marines had called him Sarge, even as he rose ever higher in the ranks. It was the highest compliment those grizzled veterans paid anyone.
“We are gathered here to pay our respects to a man I had the immense honor of calling my friend.” Cain’s voice was soft, his tone mournful. “Lieutenant General Darius Jax came to the Corps, as so many of us have, from the lowest levels of Earth society. He took the opportunity offered him and he became a Marine…one to make all of us in the Corps proud.”
Cain looked out at those assembled. General Holm, sitting in the first row, staring straight ahead with the grim discipline that made him who he was. But Erik could see in his eyes the grief tearing him apart. Sarah, her face red and raw from her tears, sitting silently, not quite able to look directly at Erik as he spoke. Admirals Garret and Compton were sitting at respectful attention and, in the back, leaning uncomfortably, was Admiral West. She was still in considerable pain from her partially healed wounds, but she’d checked herself out of the infirmary and insisted on attending.
“I met Darius a few days before Operation Achilles, and we served through that campaign together.” Achilles was the failed invasion of Tau Ceti III, one of the worst debacles the Corps had ever endured. “During that fiery trial, he and I forged the foundations of a trust and a friendship that would carry us through some of the darkest places men have travelled.” Cain’s mind drifted back over the years, to worlds visited and battles fought long ago.
“Darius Jax spent his life fighting for a better future, for one where liberty is valued and preserved, where mankind can have another chance at freedom.” Cain said the words, but in his heart he knew he didn’t believe them anymore. That future they fought for was always another war, always more death and suffering. Now that never-ending cycle had claimed his friend. “He gave his life in that fight, so that future generations can know a better life than the one he was born into.”
Erik looked at the back of the room, where many of Jax’s Marines were gathered. They were hardened warriors, most of them, veterans of a dozen campaigns, but there was not a dry eye among them. “I’m not sure my friend ever knew his troops called him Sarge…” He forced a smile for the men and women lined up along the rear wall. “…but I am sure he knew how much they loved him…how much we all loved him. And I know that knowledge was one of the great joys of his life.”
He looked back again, giving Jax’s Marines his own silent tribute. “My poor skills are inadequate to describe the emptiness left by the loss of this great warrior, this excellent man. I could speak for hours about my friend Darius, about my comrade General Jax…but instead I will utter the one thing I know for certain he would have wanted me to say. Darius Jax lived and died for the Corps. He was a Marine.”
Cain was finally alone. It had been hard to give the slip to Sarah and General Holm. They knew how much Jax’s death hurt him, but after all the years they still didn’t understand him…not completely.
He looked through the small porthole at the glowing blue sphere 50,000 kilometers below the station’s geosynchronous orbit. He had never been to Sandoval before, but by all accounts it was a beautiful world. Now it would become a battlefield.
Cain had his pain and guilt about Jax, more than Sarah or the general could ever know. But all that was locked away, deep down. It had taken a colossal effort to suppress it all, but he just couldn’t face it now. He’d deal with it someday, but not today. The war wasn’t over, and he had his duty. Duty had ruled his life, and that wasn’t going to change now. He couldn’t think of a worse tribute to his fallen friend than to let grief and guilt keep him from the fight.
There would be time to mourn, time to face his guilt…if he survived the war. When that day came, he thought, it might tear him apart. There might not be much left of Erik Cain, the man. He wasn’t sure he cared…he suspected there wasn’t much left of him anyway. It was his fault Jax died, at least that’s how he saw it, and he didn’t know how he would ever reconcile with that. If he’d garrisoned he mountains…if he’d sent in the Janissaries sooner. So many ifs. Was it arrogance, carelessness? Or was he just used up, no longer able to handle the burden of command?
He pushed back the doubts, and the self-hatred too. Erik Cain the Marine had a job to do and, as always, that came first. Personal pain and loss would have to wait. There was only one thing that was important now, one thing that demanded the best he could give. Everything he had left would go into the fight…body, blood, soul. He owed that much to Jax.