My imagination spun out scenarios that grew worse with each iteration. A crash? Was he shot? It could be an entirely innocent scenario, where they’d managed a communication window at an inconvenient hour of the night and needed me present to finalize our divorce. Surely that was it, that one, easy answer that made perfect sense and didn’t involve his mangled body on a stretcher-
Give me information, and I can wait patiently forever. Leave me in the dark, and I become a one-man disaster fabrication machine. I had definitely swan dived into Imagined Catastrophe Mode and didn’t know how to find the surface again.
We drove down the long, unlit stretch of interstate toward the gate of Fort Carson. A guard who looked alert despite the hour saw Randall and waved us through. This set off more alarms in my head, since even if they’d seen him on the way out, they should have asked about his new passenger.
They were expecting me.Still within the parameters of my best case scenario. Let’s note here that mybestcase scenario involved an interplanetary divorce. That should say a lot about theworstcases.
It had been a long time since I’d set foot on Fort Carson. The place hadn’t much changed since I’d served here. Still full of utilitarian buildings and a quiet sense of purpose that permeates every roadway, every structure, every person on the base.
Though that sense of purpose wasn’tquiettonight. Personnel darted between buildings at speeds that varied from fast strides to outright sprints. It looked like someone had come along and kicked a hive of camouflaged wasps, and they swarmed around the command buildings, ready to sting.
Randall pulled up outside a secondary secure comms complex and slammed the truck into park. He bailed out the driver’s door and strode fast enough for the doors that I scrambled to get out of the truck myself and catch up. My hip complained at the awkward pace. I ignored it.
Where the outside was chaos, the inside brought order. Communications personnel spoke into their headsets as they referenced information on their screens. A soldier fell in next to us, or really, next tometo block my view of the monitors we passed behind. I still caught a few glimpses of data and though I couldn’t decipher the tidbits I saw, I did deduce the people here had their eyes on Mars.
They did not need me here to finalize my divorce. The Disaster Slot Machine rolled in my head again. Three cherries, lots of bells, catastrophic jackpot.
Randall led us through the comms center, which I had never been in when I served, to a door near the middle and off to one of the quieter, less active sides of the room. Our escort fell in next to the entry and stood in a sentinel position as my father-in-law opened the door and motioned me inside. This time, I didn’t need the Disaster Machine to tell me the worst had happened. I knew when I saw the room, and who waited within it.
They’d created a small space that masqueraded as a comfortable lounge. Padded chairs no one would callplushbut were more pleasant than folding chairs sat near a small, plain couch. A couple of tiny tables for drinks stood near the seats. One monitor dominated a wall, connected to a military comms box that would decode secure signals.
That was why this space existed in the comms building. Families used it for emergency communications to personnel stationed on Mars. Tonight, that family was the Sadlers, and the emergency belonged to us all.
Brenda sat in one of the chairs, wrapped in a warm sweater as she stared at the wall. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Laramie crouched next to her, arm around her shoulders as he murmured soft assurances that everything would be all right. His eyes burned pink, too, and I could tell he didn’t believe a word that fell out of his mouth. Nothing would be all right. Nothing wouldeverbe all right again.
Smaller monitors showed the faces of two women, both with reddened eyes and damp faces. I’d seen their pictures at the Sadler ranch. Cheyenne, the older sister who worked on the rockets that took our forces to Mars, sat with her hand on her forehead as she spoke into a headset. They’d muted her feed so we couldn’t hear what she was saying. Sheridan, the younger sister who served in the battle armor units, had her face in both hands and her elbows on her desk. We could hear her quiet sobs all too clearly.
A military doctor sat in a chair in the corner, our liaison to the Army’s medical service, waiting with a solemn grimness unique to medical staff. I knew that façade, hadwornthat façade, the forced calm and hard-fought peace you have to project in the most terrible times. Already, I felt it striding to the fore with the bleak determination to take over until I had the luxury to fall apart.
“I brought him,” Randall said. “We couldn’t get hold of him because he has no phone.”
Laramie looked up with a glare that held no regret. Brenda, she didn’t have a glare left. Just a tired numbness for the man she believed cheated on her son. Both sisters spared me baleful looks. The persona non grata had arrived.
The doctor stood up. “Mister Sadler-” he began, and paused as everyone else present glowered his direction.
I held up a hand. “Sebastian is easier. Please. What’s going on?”
“There’s been an incident on Mars,” he said, using a word I will never feel more than dread for. “I’m told you know your- Sergeant Sadler deployed in a military action I can’t elaborate on.”
Yes. My husband. My husband in limbo, now my husband in a coffin? In a hospital bed? In a ditch full of red dirt and Russians? “I do. Is he alive?”
The doctor licked his lips. “Yes. And that is what we need to talk about.”
A scream built in my gut and rushed for my mouth. Enforced calm and my doctor’s façade kept it at bay.He’s alive. Start there.“Doctor, please. I know you’re trying to go easy with this, but I can handle it straight. Tell me what happened and what his status is.”
“Gravely hurt, and slowly dying,” the doctor said plainly. “His fireteam was involved in a hostile action that resulted in several wounded with suits breached. Sergeant Sadler sustained wounds serious enough that he should have sought medical attention immediately. Instead, he remained to ensure all forces in his vicinity could reach safety. He then collapsed, and a quantity of Mars soil entered first his suit, then his lungs.”
Remember what I said about Mars trying to kill you?Goddamn it, Jackson, you just had to prove you could be the hero.I kicked my mind into more useful action than wailing and chasing hopelessness in circles. Thought through what the doctor described and saw it in clinical detail in my head.
Gunshot wounds. They could solve that. A suit breach meant exposure to radiation and potential extreme temperatures. Martian soil would both poison him and lacerate the insides of his lungs into useless meat.
The doctor had started talking again. I’d submerged five fathoms into diagnosis and hadn’t caught the first part. “-all they can, but Sergeant Sadler’s wounds are too serious. They have him on life support while arrangements can be made for a compassionate-”
“Wait,” I interrupted him, because if he said the rest of the words lined up on his tongue, I might lose my critical distance. “I understand what you are saying. What I don’t understand is why I’m here. Jackson asked me to dissolve our marriage. His family thinks I cheated on him, and they would gift me with a sack of bricks if I were drowning. They wouldn’t ask me to come share this intimate moment of grief with them unless they needed me for something.”
“You’re still listed as his next of kin,” Brenda said in a harsh croak of a voice. “They called us when he was hurt, because we were listed in his emergency contacts and you didn’t pick up. We told them not to keep trying to get you. They’d already done emergency care by the time we got here. Now there’s nothing else they can do, and we can’t even-”
Her voice broke. Randall crouched down in front of her and opened his arms. She fell into them, sobbing into his shirt, as he looked over her shoulder at me. “We can’t tell them to let him go. The doctor refuses to do it on our word. You’re the only one authorized to make medical decisions for him.”