Neil looked out to where dawn was threatening the horizon. He hadn’t slept, though it was needed and wanted desperately. Instead he had taken a watch on the radio, giving Flint the last couple hours to sleep. It felt helpless, sitting there damn near in the shadow of their goal. But the mountain had looked huge for days; it only felt like they were on the doorstep.

“You alright, sergeant?”

Neil looked down from his vantage point. Major Darrow was looking up at him. “Yes ma’am.” He said, and slid down the rock, landing heavily.

“Shouldn’t do that.” She winced. “Doesn’t look like much now, but it’ll add up. Knees are still a trick for them to get right.”

“Heard they had moved on to just replacing the whole piece when things got bad enough.” Neil nodded to the stump of Darrow’s arm. “Gotta be something of a comfort, knowing they got that tech worked out.”

The Major’s smile was bitter. “Thankfully they haven’t moved onto involuntary prosthetic repair, just yet, though the senate is pushing for it in emergency situations.”

“Aye, now?”

“Only when the soldier’s life is in the gravest

“You’ll stay as is?”

“I don’t know.” She said, glancing at the stump. “But I’ve interviewed many soldiers who have been fitted. Some say that they lived to regret it, especially after it can’t be reversed. They make some good points.”

“You’ll keep the stump?”

Darrow’s face became emotionless. “I hope there’s a bit of time to consider that question.” She looked back up at Neil. “How are you holding up?”

Neil looked back around. “I don’t feel like I’ve done too much, ma’am. Half the time I feel like I’m barking orders at pieces that are already moving, and they know their jobs better than I could. Sometime I wonder what the point is.”

“The point?” Darrow made to cross her arms, winced, and awkwardly placed them back by her side. “What do you mean what’s the point? Of you?” Neil shrugged, and the Major huffed out an exasperated breath. “We’re going to Olympus Mons, yes?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And where are we right now?”

Neil furrowed his brow. “A strategic stopping point?”

“But everyone knows that we’re going to Olympus Mons. What’s the point of this strategic stopping point?”

Neil was quiet. It seemed like an obvious question, but he couldn’t find the ways to explain it without using what it was to describe it. “It… well, ma’am, it helps us get there in one piece.”

She nodded. “You might be barking orders at pieces that are already moving, but remember that it’s you putting the big things in motion right now. A rally point is only good for something if you know where it is, and that there’s direction when you get there. Right now, you’re their rally point.”

“I guess you’re right, ma’am.” Neil swept his hand across the quiet soldiers. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel like what I signed up for.”

“Stop.” Major Darrow’s voice didn’t change volume, but it cracked like a sheet of ice snapping. Neil froze, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. When he turned back, there was the muzzle of a weapon, a sidearm, held just out of arm's reach. “Not what you signed up for?” She hissed. “Sergeant First Class Ziggenbor I want you to think very, very carefully about those errant words you just spoke. I want you to truly understand their meaning, and I want you to regret them.” Her voice was under control. “I want those words to bring you shame, every time you think of them. When you think of Private Langley, Private Simon, Private Troy… I want you to think of the fact that they knew what they signed up for, and they died for it. And if you’re not willing to do the same, I’ll kill you. Myself, here. Because you will compromise this mission, and someone will die.” She holstered the weapon, but Neil felt no less threatened as she stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder, her voice gentler.. “Sergeant Ziggenbor… errant words that you don’t mean, that bear no weight from you can define a soldier’s life. It can be the difference between laying down to die and carrying on. I want you to remember that too. You’ll need to, because if you pull this off you’re going to be remembered.”

Then Major Darrow turned and walked away casually, as though she had not just been holding a gun in his face. Neil’s heart rate reacted then, and his mind whirled through the military protocol that had been broken by the senior officer of this shitshow just in deed and word. Then Neil decided that she was right. The shame did burn in him, and he blinked away hot tears as he returned to the radio, donning the headset. A moment later, as if in answer to his distress, the Martian dawn broke. Sensor lights on the stripe’s solar panels began buzzing to life, and the few soldiers who had been able to sleep rose. Those who hadn’t began busying themselves with their tasks. Neil looked at Olympus Mons, and decided that he would get there. With everyone he could, and that he wouldn’t go until the mission was complete. And that, he reflected bitterly, was so much easier said than done.

--

“Sir,” a Lieutenant, one of the aids to commander Seris said, stepping onto the bridge. “We’ll be arriving at Mars in one hour.”

“Thank you.” Martin said, and turned to Major Denton, who had never been far from his side since Taske Force Berghest had come aboard. Denton nodded and stepped away, tapping calmly on a tablet. That would be the standby order sent to Jackson Valentine’s first squad. They had given him a walk through of their ship, giving detailed descriptions of procedures and operations in the event of a planetary deployment. Even that had not fully calmed Martin. He had boarded smuggler ships as an ensign and been involved in some of the more daring skirmishes with one of the main crime circles as a chief weapons officer. It had even been his command during two of the primary naval conflicts when the crime circles had unified, during one of which he had been critically outmanned and outgunned. The other of which had decided the brief but serious crisis.

But at this point he had resigned himself to the probability that the knot of anxiety in his stomach would not calm until he looked his brother in the eye and saw his vitals stabilize. Contenting himself with checking the logs and calling the heads of readiness stations for report, it was at least enough to get his mind off the problem he couldn’t solve. “Weapons,” He called. “Report in.” Ridgewater came to him and stood at attention. “Is my ship ready for battle, Captain?”

“Systems are a go, sir, all batteries green. Are you expecting a fight?”

“No.” Martin said. “I’m not worried about a fight, but it’s the fights we aren’t expecting that I am worried about.”

“Understood sir.”

“Standby to be called on, captain.”

“Yes sir.”

“Commander Ziggenbor.” Denton called. “Two transmissions for you sir.”

“Thank you.” Martin went to the small room designated for the officer of the bridge and scanned the two files. The first was from Admiral Neerson, the second was from Sergeant Valentine. He tapped the first, and Neerson’s face winked to life.

“Commander Ziggenbor,” The hologram said. “We have established contact with the 9-907th. They have reached the extraction point on Olympus Mons with little harassment from hostile forces and are awaiting our arrival. We are monitoring all frequencies for hostile movements and for communications from the 3-95th. So far we have heard nothing from either. You are instructed to maintain the Ascendency’s bearing and tactical distance to same. All ships classified at ANCF and above will not descend into the Martian exosphere. There’s a good chance you won’t be needed here, Commander, one way or another. If you are, it won’t be you calling those shots, I’ve already handled things on that front. Keep your ship at the ready and flying easy and we’ll be out of this in a couple hours. Neerson out.”

The hologram winked out, and Martin couldn’t keep the rage from setting his hands to shaking. It wasn’t going to be him calling the shots? Why had Neerson brought him along then, if it hadn’t been to leverage his ‘conflict of interests’? Martin gritted his teeth and fought to keep his breathing steady. Orders were orders, and he was lucky to have been included in the mission in any case. Hell, maybe Neerson had brought him along just because he knew it would have been hard for him not to order the Vindicator underway and follow along despite orders.

The thought brought a long sigh. Martin knew that for all the bluster that the Ziggenbor brothers had been collectively known for in their youth, he would never order a mutiny. The crew wouldn’t have gone along with it, starting with his old weapon’s crew. Ridgewater would have stood up to him in a heartbeat, and Hightower would have backed her. Against that charisma and those brains, he wouldn’t have had a prayer.

Letting his face fall into his hands, he ignored the fact that every second was precious. Allowing a moment for the emotion in, to flood him, be ignited, and burned away, was something that he had learned from his little brother. Martin had always thought that Neil would have come back from his first deployment more angry, more bitter, with more of an explosive temper on a tighter fuse.

But he hadn’t.

Those things had been there, Neil had told him. But it had been an old chaplain dying on the slopes of Arsia Mons that had told him: the fire will burn, whether you let it burn or not. But if you let it burn, you can more easily control what it burns. And once it burns, it’s gone.

When it had burned in Martin, he tapped the second file.

Sergeant First Class Valentine’s profile appeared. “Ready to go, sir. Valentine out.” And the hologram went away.

“I like that man.” Martin muttered, and stood to go, but as he did another file winked into existence on the tablet. It was encrypted, and addressed in destination to Detachment Echo as a whole. After punching in the credentials at one of the Vindicator’s commanders, the face of the General from the initial briefing came to life.

“Detachment Echo,” He said, his voice hard. “The 3-95th has been eliminated. You are instructed to secure the 9-907th battalion and evacuate the system with all haste.”

The General vanished from sight leaving Martin sitting in the silence of the office, his mouth hanging open slack-jawed in a most un-officer like fashion. The message deleted itself from the inbox a moment later, and the tablet was blank, like Martin’s mind. Images of Neil flashed through his mind, Neil as a child playing soldier while he and Matt barked orders at him, Neil as a teenager screaming at their father, Neil itching in his bones to get off world… Neil laying in a hospital bed an inch from death because Martin hadn’t been there for him.

And he hadn’t been for him this time, either.

Another message winked onto the tablet and Martin punched it with more force than intended. Sergeant Valentine’s face appeared again, this time facing him head on. “Commander Ziggenbor, my team is standing by for insertion once we are within deployment distance of the planet. All further communications with my squad will take place between you and Captain Benson. Valentine out.”

Before the hologram was gone, Martin was out of the office. “Captain Ridgewater!” He shouted. “Take the bridge!” She shouted something, but he sprinted from the room, careening down the hallway, ignoring those coming to attention as he went. In a matter of minutes he was on the lift down to hanger bay C, and he sprinted across the expanse of vacant floorspace, slapping the hull of the unnamed ship. “Valentine!” He yelled. “Valentine open up, that’s an order!”

“Sir!” Came a voice from behind him. It was Hightower, but he didn’t turn.

“Damnit Valentine, open this--”

The side panel slid open, and without waiting Martin reached up for the handles to pull himself onboard-- and was met with a palm that sent him backward, dumping him on his ass. The broad, solid face of Specialist Mennin glared down at him. “V!” She called back through the ship. “It’s him!”

“Right on schedule.” Sergeant Valentine muttered, and Mennin moved out of the way as Jackson Valentine appeared in his full kit minus helmet, and glowered down at Martin. “Forget it, sir.” He barked. “I’m not to let you onboard.”

“What?” Martin said, trying to reach back up and grab the boarding handles. Sergeant Valentine slapped his hands back. “Back off, sir, I’ve got my orders from higher up than you.” The Sergeant said, his voice getting harder. “Admiral Neerson said you were not, under any circumstances, to board this vessel after inspection. Now get the fuck out of this hangar and let us do our job.”

“Excuse me, Sergeant?” Martin bellowed.

“Sir!” Hightower pleaded, trying to get her arms around Martin to pull him back.

“I said FUCK OFF, sir!” Valentine said, leaning into the words. There was a cadence and a power to them that set Martin’s teeth rattling. “I am authorized to use neutralizing force to prevent you from boarding this vessel!”

The words caught Martin off balance. “What?”

“Do you like your fucking kneecaps, sir?!” Sergeant Valentine roared. “If you do, get the fuck away from my ship and do your fucking job, and stop compromising my mission, or it’s your kid brother that’s going to be the one who dies!”

The words stunned Martin into silence for a moment. “I’m his big brother.” He said in a small, pleading voice. “This is what big brothers are supposed to do.”

Pain crossed Jackson Valentine’s face, and then hardened back into resolve. “Sir. Just go. We’ll talk after.” And he slammed the hatch, the locks tightening the door down into place.

Martin huffed out a breath, and Hightower’s hand came down on his shoulder. “Sir, please.” She said, “Twenty minutes out and the bridge is nervous. Nervous officers don’t do their jobs well.”

“Right.” He said, a bit thickly. “Right. I’ll be right up, Lieutenant.”

“I’ll be right behind you. Sir.”