End of the Line Read online

  “How the fuck is this possible?” I demanded. The group quieted down and turned toward me. “Is this some kind of Kai hack?”

  “If it is,” Goldman answered, “they’ve mastered all of our encryptions, broken all of our ciphers, and tortured someone to get all of the authorization codes. That’s assuming they’ve learned human language enough to understand how to interact with our software.”

  “Calm down, Private,” Lowell said with a chuckle. “The message came in sometime during the time between our last suit reboots. A maintenance check always triggers flash messages and updates system firmware and software.”

  “But the Wire is down!” I tried to keep my voice from rising. “We’ve been cut off since we entered the system.”

  “Sure,” Goldman said. “They cut our main Wire access. Or more scientifically, they breached the slice of space we carved out to use as an instant communications link.”

  “I thought that was impossible, given the infinite nature of coordinates and all that quantum entanglement bullshit that goes with it,” I said.

  “And yet the Kai seem to have been successful at it, and not just against humanity. But thanks to ‘infinite coordinates and all that quantum entanglement bullshit,’ it makes sense to have an emergency band that never gets used other than in the most dire… emergencies, yes?”

  I felt my face turn red as my squad mates laughed at my ignorance. “And you know all this from your stint in Intel?”

  “I know all of this because I paid attention at the Academy.”

  “It helps that he has a background in physics,” McAdams said helpfully. I shot her a glare to let her know she wasn’t being helpful.

  “Fine. So the government has an emergency Wire, and all of our suits are fitted with the hardware to use the regular Wire and this emergency Wire?”

  “No offense, Lofgren,” Goldman said, “but you must be a bumpkin who only listened to the ‘how to kill aliens’ parts.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Goldman sighed. “How much does your suit cost?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not the Adjunct Auditor General.”

  “Rough estimate, something you heard on the news. Back when there was still news.”

  “In college, I remember hearing how they cost something like sixty million credits each, and another fifty million to develop the software training sims as well as train bumpkins like me how to kill aliens.”

  “The suit you’re standing in cost just over two billion credits. Just for the suit hardware and the software to run it. That doesn’t include the engineering and software development to create the sims, nor the cost of training your bumpkin ass to not kill yourself or others of the incorrect xenotype.”

  A few whistled at the number Goldman had spouted. I rolled his words around in my head.

  “The major cost of your suit, Private,” Goldman continued lecturing me, “is the comm system. Each suit is capable of receiving Wire transmissions from a different ‘channel,’ instead of the typical hardwiring for the ‘normal’ Wire channel that connected every human being in the galaxy together. Though calling the medium the Wire uses a ‘channel’ makes me want to slug you for making me dumb it down to where I’m now an ignorant hillbilly like you and Jordan.”

  “The whole fucking thing is a scam,” I said, ignoring his insult. “This entire war is a scam. Was a scam. It’s a fucking slaughter now.”

  “Congratulations, Private Lofgren,” Lowell announced. “You’ve finally caught up to the rest of the class.”

  “How can you be sure the Kai didn’t hack this message together?” I asked, too stubborn to buy this sudden event. Not now, not after the Kai had focused on our squad.

  “Jesus, Lofgren, give it a rest,” Jordan said.

  “Because, Private,” Goldman answered, “the codes are authentic. Once the message was received and played, that Wire was cut. If and when Lowell dies, a new Wire will be created to send the message along naming McAdams or some other asshole as the leader of the human race.” He glanced at Sergeant McAdams. “No offense, Sergeant.”

  “None taken, Specialist,” she said, giving him a thumbs-up.

  “What if there’s no one left after us?” I asked.

  “I guess the Wire will ping the universe looking for another suit, starship, or emergency transmitter with a receiver capable of interacting with that Wire.”

  “Hey,” Jordan said. Everyone turned toward him. “Maybe one day a Kai will hack that Wire, and he’ll be crowned King-Chancellor of the Terran Coalition.”

  “Funny,” I said. “So what now? As the Chancellor of Earth and the Terran Colonies, do you get to call in a stealth dropship to get us the fuck out of here?”

  “I wish,” Lowell said. “Now that you’ve all listened to it, and are done asking dumbass questions,” he flipped up his visor to stare directly at me “I’ll tell you what you’ve all been literally dying to hear. I’m now the Chancellor of the Coalition. I have a grand total of zero Terran Navy warships, along with zero Terran Marine and Terran Home Guard forces at my disposal to win this war.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Kirilenko asked.

  “It means that I’m a king without a country,” Lowell answered. “I’m King Shit of Fuck Mountain, except there is no Fuck Mountain. I’m the leader of the last seven humans in the galaxy.”

  “So everyone else is dead, then?” Hollingsworth asked. The bitterness in her voice made me cringe inside my suit.

  “I highly doubt that, Specialist,” Lowell said. “Humans… we’ll probably have a few stragglers across this planet and the rest of the colonies for years, decades even. There’s probably a Terran ship, maybe a few, still limping around, hopefully smart enough to go on a nice, long journey to another arm of the galaxy and start over. But it does mean that we’re the last military unit in the galaxy that can still access the emergency Wire system. The Kai have eliminated all other humans who were tied to the government. There’s just us. Seven idiots in multibillion credit combat suits, wandering the wilds of North America, watching our fellow humans become ashes and memories.”

  “How fucking poetic,” I said, my voice full of anger. “So this is like, what? One last fucking joke from our esteemed leaders who doomed us all? What’s the fucking point? Why would they even bother to keep passing the mantle on to the next person when there’s going to be no one left to pass it to? They had to have known that!”

  I let out a stream of shouted profanity before stomping away in my suit. I wanted to run until my suit discharged its power cell and I died from dehydration. Or starvation. Or maybe I’d take a flying leap off a ledge. The CR-31 was a tough son of a bitch, but it wouldn’t help me walk away from a hundred-meter fall into a pile of rocks. I chopped out with my right arm at a young tree as I crashed by. The trunk exploded in a shower of wood pulp and bark. I didn’t bother to watch out for the top fifteen feet of the tree, not caring if it fell on my head. I hoped it fell on my head.

  The perimeter sensor chirped at me, letting me know I had passed beyond its range. I kept walking for another fifteen minutes until I came to a short overhang that looked down into our canyon from twenty meters up. I couldn’t see my squad from here, but I didn’t want to see them. I wanted to see the sky, to see the trees. To see anything but another human being for a while.

  ELEVEN

  “Are you okay?” McAdams’ voice asked in my helmet.

  I heard her climbing up the hill, but didn’t acknowledge her presence until she kneeled down next to me on the ledge.

  “I don’t think so,” I answered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Seriously? You’re going to ask me what’s wrong?”

  “Why are you so upset about this?”

  “Because it’s stupid. Because it’s a shitty, cruel thing to do. Mostly because it’s a worthless gesture. Oh, look, I’m Chancellor of the miserable, worthless fleshbags known as humans. I rule over six other human beings.”

  “You real
ly think Lowell is going to pretend he’s an old emperor, a czar, dictator, whatever?”

  “No, it isn’t that. He’s just Sergeant Lowell, no matter what title that message bestowed upon him. It’s just… how can you not see it as the final kick to the balls for us? Like some piece of shit ministers and admirals and generals got together and hatched a fucking plan they thought would instill humanity with the will, the drive to fight on. We gotta have an organized government or our civilization will fall apart, right?”

  “Chain of command, Private,” she said softly. McAdams flipped up her visor, then touched her helmet to mine. I flipped my visor up. “It’s the only thing they know. Knew. I thought you were a philosopher. You should be familiar with how this all works. Men have to be led, and some men have to do the leading. To create a lasting society, rituals have to be invented to pass power along to the next guy in line, otherwise the system breaks down when a leader dies.”

  “You have a philosophy book stored in your suit’s computer or something?” I asked, pulling my helmet back.

  “Because I’m a combat engineer, I’m not smart?”

  “No, I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “You sure?” she asked, frowning at me. “You think you’re the only one who went to college?”

  “No,” I said, feeling an inch tall.

  “Good, Private. I’m glad you believe in equality and that women are as smart as you think yourself to be.”

  “What the fuck?” I asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it as if you were stupid, okay? It’s just some shit that none of these other dumbasses would ever say. I don’t think any of them other than Lowell have read a book since the Academy, and probably barely three books before that.”

  She laughed, a genuine laugh that made me feel better, like I’d healed a small wound, but it wasn’t enough to wipe away the cancerous thoughts in my head, the betrayal I felt, the suspicion that I was an expendable pawn in a chess game that my own leaders had gambled on and lost.

  “So I’m not stupid?” she asked, cocking her head, which looked funny inside of her helmet.

  “Of course not.”

  “Did you have a good time with Helen?”

  “What?” I asked, surprised at the question coming out of nowhere.

  “You heard me.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Girls talk,” was all she said.

  “Okay. And?”

  “According to what little she said, I got ripped off. I almost asked Hollingsworth, but it’s probably best to not set her off.”

  “What do you mean ripped off? What does that even mean?”

  “You know what it means, Private,” she said, standing up. “It means you owe me for that half-assed performance the other night.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. ‘Oh.’ Come on, let’s head back. Lowell is worried that you might be losing it. You’re not cracking up, are you?”

  “Would you put a round through my head if I was?”

  She knelt back down beside me, and gripped my arm with one of her gloved hands.

  “No, Dana. I wouldn’t shoot you unless you were a danger to us. But I need to know. Are you slipping out of reality? This is a lot of shit to carry around, being one of the last humans in existence. It’s a burden on us all, and I don’t think any of us are handling it any better, which might make us all as crazy as you, if that’s what is happening.”

  “I don’t know anymore. I’m so numb that I can’t feel anything except rage and betrayal, which only fuels the rage even more.”

  “You’d tell me if you were going to do something crazy or stupid, right?”

  “Fuck no,” I said, looking her directly in the eye, my anger too obvious to miss. “If I was crazy and planning on shooting you all in your sleep, or calling up the Kai and giving them our coordinates for a bombing run, I goddamn sure wouldn’t fucking tell you or anyone else about it.”

  She stared at me for a few seconds before beginning to laugh again. I received a slap on the back that almost pitched me forward over the ledge. When I looked up, she’d already walked a few meters away. The sergeant glanced back at me.

  “Come on, Private. Supreme Ruler Lowell has some promotions to hand out.”

  I gave her a blank look. She gestured with her hand for me to stop being an idiot and follow her.

  “Promotions?” I said after we made our way down to the bottom of the canyon.

  “You don’t want to die as a lowly private, do you?”

  ***

  “Welcome back, Private Lofgren,” Corporal Jordan said.

  Except I noticed that my HUD had updated, and I saw that I’d been addressed by Lieutenant General Tyler David Jordan, a four-bar general of the Terran Marines. I didn’t know if I was supposed to salute him or not.

  “Don’t salute that asshole,” Hollingsworth said, as if reading my mind. “Private,” she added after bumping fists with General Jordan.

  I was glad to see the two were getting along enough to be intimate on a regular basis. It made me sad because I felt alone, cut off from the warmth of my fellow soldiers, even the female soldiers whom I had shared a tent with. Not because they’d all been handed promotions, but because I couldn’t see the point of becoming attached to anyone, male or female, when there was no chance of the intimacy, the friendship, possibly more, ending in anything but tragedy.

  “Well, Lofgren,” Lowell said as I stood there staring at the collection of suits with what I’m sure was a stupid look on my face. “Glad you had time to decompress. However, I don’t think you’ll be too happy in a few moments. So, I’ll give you a choice. Good news or bad news first?”

  It was a classic game in the Marines, probably in the Navy as well. Hell, we played it when we were kids. You always asked for the bad news first, because it would always be truly bad news that would trump whatever bullshit good news was waiting (which was nothing but bad news wrapped up in an ironic package with a giant FUCK YOU! bow on top).

  “Gimme the good news,” I said. What the hell. You only live once, and now seemed like a good time to break the rules.

  “The good news is that we’ve all been promoted. I had to promote Sergeant McAdams to Commander General of the Terran Marine Forces so she could execute the official promotion authorizations, but I think I’ve made a fine choice.”

  I looked over at General McAdams, who somehow curtsied in her suit before saluting me. It was strange to see the five bars and the General insignia in my HUD anytime I looked at her. I returned the salute and focused on Lowell again.

  “Then I had to promote Ensign Kirilenko to Fleet Admiral of the Terran Coalition Naval Forces. Just in case we run across any sailors in our adventures.”

  Kirilenko scowled at him, then winked at me. I knew the chances of finding a sailor was so close to zero as to need a quantum calculator to place the decimal, and there was no chance of meeting up with a naval officer, or Lowell wouldn’t have been promoted to Chancellor. Hollingsworth and Goldman had been promoted to Lieutenant General as well.

  “The bad news, Private, is that even as Chancellor of the Terran Coalition, according to the Terran Military Uniform Administration Guide, I am unable to promote you to a rank above colonel.”

  I stared at him for a full minute. Everyone stared at me as if they expected me to lunge for Sergeant Lowell. Chancellor Lowell. Whatever he was.

  “Why not?” I finally asked.

  “You haven’t hit your five-year service mark yet. If you’re still alive in two hundred ninety-one days, I’ll gladly upgrade you to a general.”

  “Okay,” I said as if I would file that date away and we’d casually revisit the promise when it came.

  I didn’t think we’d live another twenty-nine days, to be honest. At least I’d die a colonel. It was supposed to be comforting, but I might as well have picked up a glove full of ashes and stuffed them in my mouth. I didn’t give a shit if I died with the title Emperor-King Sultan of The Sagittarius Arm of the Milky W
ay Galaxy. No one but me would know it. I doubted the Kai would send in archaeologists to study the species they’d just exterminated.

  “Jesus, Lofgren,” Jordan said. “You’re too fuckin’ gloomy suddenly.”

  “Thanks,” I said and turned to walk away.

  “You haven’t been dismissed,” Lowell said, the command in his voice still able to grab hold of the obedience center of my brain, just as the Marines had trained it to do.

  “Yes, Sir,” I said, snapping to attention and giving him a salute.

  “I know being only a colonel is probably pretty disappointing,” he said, giving me a sympathetic look. “If it helps, I tried to override the protocol, but apparently it’s some kind of rule that is so ironclad that not even the leader of the human race can alter it.”

  “It’s okay, Sarge,” I said. “Er… Chancellor.”

  Lowell laughed. “I couldn’t even make you an admiral under Kirilenko, as it covers all branches of the armed forces. The only other option was a position as Vice-Chancellor, but I was pretty sure you didn’t want that. The others agreed that you’d be much happier as a colonel.”

  I passed my gaze over the rest of the squad. Within seconds, they burst out laughing, unable to contain it any longer. I smiled, and even laughed with them, but it was a facsimile of a laugh. Inside, I didn’t care. I felt more alone than ever. I knew these six Marines were my friends, some were my lovers, and yet, I couldn’t allow myself to be part of their world anymore.

  I felt a shiver roll through me, a seismic shift in my emotional balance. The world seemed colder, grayer now. I accepted my new commission with a fake smile, fake laughs, and fake joking around about how some of us could now order everyone else around, or how there would be sneaky assassination plots to move up the rapidly shrinking chain of command. After about ten minutes, I walked under the tree canopy and stopped near my tent. I exited my suit, gave it a spot cleaning, then retired to my tent.

  “Dana?” Hollingsworth’s voice called to me an hour later.