“They’ll retrieve Indy’s stealth buoys and try to figure out where the fleet went with all the good shit. I wouldn’t mind being a part of the ass-kicking that’s going to follow when the joint task force shows up wherever they went and reclaims whatever they ferried out of the system.”
Thinking about Indianapolis and Colonel Campbell is like a small, sharp knife in my chest. I wonder how many of the crew went into the escape pods before Indy made that last desperate attack run, and I’d love to be able to find out. But with Indy gone, most of my friends are dead, and those who are left are almost all down here on Earth. Fighting the Lankies on Earth, as terrifying as it is, feels right. It feels like I’d be doing what should have been my job all along. But what’s left of the fleet will need every hand on deck if we want to keep the Lankies away from Earth in the future.
“I don’t want to decide this right now,” I say. “I don’t want to leave again and go wherever some pencil pusher with stars on his shoulder boards tells me to go. But I don’t want to just piss on my oath of service.”
“?‘I solemnly swear and affirm to loyally serve the North American Commonwealth, and to bravely defend its laws and the freedom of its citizens,’?” Halley recites. “Doesn’t say where and how. Just says to bravely defend. You can do that down here just the same. Maybe better. Fewer pencil pushers.”
I look at the pale and diffused sunlight glistening on the river. Down below, on the waterfront, the ever-resilient seagulls are circling in the breeze and diving for scraps, white specks in the distance.
“You got the letter,” I say. “The one you punched me for.”
“I did,” she says. “Came in the interstation mail.”
“I wonder if my mom got hers. I sent it with the same guy, on the same day.”
“They were still doing mail runs from and to Luna until the relay went on the fritz,” Halley says. “That was only two days before you got there. I’m pretty sure she got it.”
She puts her hand in mine—her right hand, my right hand, not the one that’s half-gone and wrapped in trauma gel. I wonder how many doctors Lazarus has recruited, I think.
“What did you tell her?” Halley asks.
“I told her I love her,” I say. “Told her thank you for bringing me up and getting me away from that shit-sack of a father.”
I look east, where I know the Green Mountains are somewhere in the distance past the horizon, beyond New York and Lake Champlain.
“I told her to get out of Boston and to the place where we last had coffee,” I say. “And that I’d come see her there if I made it back.”
“Well,” Halley says. She holds her ring up next to mine and clinks them together lightly. “Then let’s not decide right this second. The fleet has no idea where we are. If we decide to stay here with the brigade, the fleet’s never going to know. And if we decide to go back, a few weeks aren’t going to make a difference. Not to them, anyway. I want to spend some time with my new husband without having to check schedules or look at a damn chrono. I want to live life for just a little while. Let the world go to shit after. We’ll deal with it then.”
“I bet we could ask General Lazarus for a week or two of thinking time and a ride out to the Green Mountains or Boston,” I say. “He needs us more than we do him. He can throw in some incentives.”
I take her hand into mine. She’s tall, only three inches shorter than I am, and her hands have long and nimble fingers that mesh perfectly with mine. The air carries the scent of water from the Great Lakes. I don’t know how much time we have bought ourselves with what we did yesterday—with Colonel Campbell’s sacrifice—but I know that I can choose how I get to spend that time, and I know what the colonel would say about that.
“I owe you a honeymoon anyway,” I say. “Let’s go talk to the general.”
Her content smile is all the affirmation I need.
The number of people who have had a direct or indirect hand in making the book in your hands (or on your Kindle in front of you) is big enough that it causes me sweaty-handed anxiety at the prospect of forgetting to mention someone.
First and foremost, a big thank-you to the fabulous crew at 47North, who have worked with awesome efficiency (nay, efficient awesomeness) to get this thing on wheels and down the road: Britt, Ben, and Justin, my editor Jason Kirk, and everyone who’s toiling behind the scenes to make things run smoothly in Seattle. I’d also like to thank David Pomerico, who isn’t at 47North anymore, but who is the guy who got the Frontlines series a home there and shepherded me through three novels.
Thanks to Andrea Hurst, my developmental editor, who once again made sure that the novel has as little suck and as much awesome as possible.
Thanks again to Marc Berte, my scientific sounding board, who makes sure that my science is not completely and ludicrously impossible.
As always, thanks to my Viable Paradise posse of regular rogues and ruffians: Claire Humphrey, Katrina Archer, Julie Day, Chang Terhune, Jeff Macfee, Curtis Chen, Steve Kopka, and Tiffani Angus. Your company and camaraderie over the years has kept the fire under my butt lit, and our little network is handily the best thing about this new career other than the royalty checks.
Thank you to John Scalzi, who is always generous with his time and advice, and Elizabeth Bear and Steven Gould. You guys are the Jedi Masters to our little VP Padawan posse.
Thanks to my agent, Evan Gregory, who keeps looking out for my interests in the dog-eat-dog world that is publishing, and who makes sure I don’t just sign any old thing people put in front of me.
Thanks to the Camp Daydrinker gang, Team Pantybear: Claire, Julie, Erica Hildebrand, Al Bogdan, Mike DeLuca, and Katie Crumpton. I didn’t get the novel finished on our retreat, but I got to recharge the Writing Energy Meter to where I could, and making new friends and traditions is always awesome.
And last but not least—a big thank-you to my readers. You keep buying these books and spreading the word to others, and I keep writing them, and it’s a racket that seems to work out really well for everyone involved. I appreciate every e-mail, review, and kind word in person, and I feel incredibly fortunate and grateful to be able to do what I am doing for a living.