Flash
Jason E. Mohler
Typically, an Imperial Scout wore her dress uniform twice: once when she graduated basic and once at her funeral. Sergeant Mallory was seven years out of basic and obviously still alive, but she still found herself walking down the corridor of LaGrange One in full dress uniform, her escort trailing behind her in their much-more-practical station duties. She paused in front of the mirror placed next to the hatch and gave her uniform a last once-over, checking her apparently sun-faded green tailcoat and the space-black tunic and slacks for any specs or creases that might mar her appearance and take away from what little authority she claimed. Satisfied that she looked as good as she was going to, she ignored the chime next to the door and knocked.
The door opened silently on its magnetic bearings and she took the prescribed five steps forward, executed a parade-grounds-perfect left face before saluting the assembled board.
"Sergeant Mallory, reporting as ordered," She said crisply while in the back of her mind, she cringed at the fact that these boards were becoming so commonplace that the refresher she'd been given had hardly been needed.
The Captain of the Board - a sparse, steel-haired colonel - returned her salute and motioned her to sit down.
"For the record, please state your name, rank and serial number."
Mallory rattled off the information and the colonel nodded.
"As you know, Sergeant, the purpose of this board is to determine the pertinent facts surrounding the survey of Keyes 37-5. Can you tell us about that day?"
"Yes Sir," Mallory began. "We were assigned to do a tech survey of the indigs..."
"Please try to avoid jargon, Sergeant."
"Of course. Sorry, Sir. We were assigned to do a technological survey of the indigenous lifeforms on Keyes 37-5."
"Were these lifeforms humanoid?"
"I don't know."
"Carry on."
"Yes, Sir. We had completed an initial sweep of the planet and determined that there were no artificial satellites in orbit around the planet. Standard Operating Procedures called for us to deploy our own satellites for a passive survey of the planet's surface, but since the Baffin had used up all her survey satellites on her previous stop, Commander McFarlain decided to use us as field-expedients."
"Field-expedients?"
"Yes, Sir. He had us put on our pressure suits, turn our sensors up to max, and placed us in orbit around the planet."
"He placed you in orbit around the planet?" A navy commander asked.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"In your pressure suit..."
"With all due respect, Ma'am, our pressure suits are quite a bit more durable than even the navy's standard issues."
"I am aware of that," the commander replied. "But doesn't that seem a little odd, your commander dumping you out an airlock like that?"
"Not really..."
"You mean he's done it before?"
"Well, it's not like it was an everyday occurrence or anything, but yes, Ma'am, he has used us as field-expedient satellites before. You should try it sometime, Ma'am. It's actually quite relaxing."
The navy officer blinked a few times, as if trying to wrap her mind around just how... odd Imperial scouts really were. The chairman of the board cleared his throat and offered Mallory a look that said he'd caught her telling a superior officer to go jump out an airlock (even if she was Navy), but he'd let it pass... for now.
"And what happened while you were orbiting the planet?" He asked, trying to bring the conversation back around.
"The first few orbits were pretty quiet..."
#
"Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it." The voice came from Owens' suit, but it was obviously not his.
"What was that?" Sergeant Mallory asked.
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Owens answered with an obvious smile, this time in his own voice.
"Oh God," She muttered. All in all, Owens was a pretty easy person to get along with, but on a long deployment, even the least offending person's faults tended to become grating and his love of old audio plays had quickly risen beyond the realm of merely annoying. "Well, keep it to yourself. We don't want too...
"What the hell?"
"Sergeant?"
"A bright flash on the night side."
"An explosion?"
"One Hell of an explosion," Page agreed. "Either anti-matter or atomics, if I had to guess."
"But..."
"I know," She replied. While it was true that many civilizations they'd been able to study had a brief period between the development of atomics and artificial satellites, the key word was brief. It had only taken Earth twelve years to go from Trinity to Sputnik, while the Ralaa had made the transition in three. On average, most civilizations made the transition in about seventeen years, which made the odds of them surveying a new planet in those brief few decades of their history more unusual. She kicked her comm system over to all squad. "Listen up! It looks like these guys may be early atomic, which means anthro's going to want as much as we can give 'em - especially EM and rads. Let's make 'em happy."
The rest of the squad acknowledged her orders and they returned to their waiting and watching. Even with the added power drain of their maxed-out sensors, their pressure suits were rated for forty-eight hours, but the plan was for nice, conservative twelve hour rotations. Mallory figured that her excitement was over - whether it was a test or an accident, she couldn't say, but she was leaning towards it being an accident. After all, who would test detonate something like that at night? But she soon learned that it didn't matter.
"Flash!" Stinston announced, interrupting her reverie. "Multiple flashes! They're spread all over the continent!"
​
"Confirmed. Multiple flashes - at least fifty," Owens added. "They seem to be centered on the major population centers."
​
"Any sign - Flash!" Mallory added her own sighting to the network. "Another! I'd say at least a hundred."
Sergeant Mallory swore as the planet below tore itself apart.
#
"...Our sensors showed a total of three hundred and seventeen atomic blasts in a period of just under two hours," Sergeant Mallory concluded. "We estimated that approximately forty-seven percent of the inhabitants were killed off in the initial exchange. Three-quarters of the remaining population were in the immediate fallout shadow while another twenty percent were in danger zones."
"Do you think your team was detected?"
"No, Sir. There wasn't the slightest whiff of radar and what radio we picked up wasn't anywhere near the frequencies we used."
"But the initial 'flash' came immediately after Owens broke radio silence?" The navy commander asked.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Is it possible the inhabitants could have detected his broadcast?"
"I suppose so, Ma'am, but I couldn't say for sure."
"I see. What happened next?"
"Baffin had switched to a long elliptical orbit after deploying us to minimize the possibility of detection," Mallory replied. "And our suit radios didn't have the power to reach her, so we waited..."
#
Now that there was no longer any need for silence, the scouts found themselves unable to speak. Even from orbit, they could see the glow of fires spreading from the blast zones. The southern hemisphere - deep in the heat of summer - was especially bad. Mallory guessed that four hours after the final blast, nearly a fifth of the southern landmasses were burning.
She vaguely noticed Owens' radio play droning in the background - something about the most important person in the universe - but couldn't bring herself to care anymore. Through unfortunate experience, she knew that watching a person die - even a stranger - was hard. But watching an entire world die was beyond her comprehension. She didn't hear Baffin's hail, or notice when they overrode her pharmacy, sedating her.
#
"... I must have been in shock, or something, because the next thing I knew I was in sickbay," Sergeant Mallory continued. "My whole squad was. The captain must have been worried about us because he'd taken us off the active duty roster and confined us to sickbay 'pending evaluation.' Looking back, I can see why he might have been concerned, but I think he may have overdone it a bit..."
#
Keyes 37-5 was three days behind the Baffin, but the five members of Mallory's squad still rallied to go to the planet's rescue.
"We have to go back!"
"We can help!"
"There's got to be some survivors!"
"You can't leave them there!"
But Mallory's voice no longer added to their cries and she no longer struggled against the restraints which held her.
"Please," She croaked, her sorely abused vocal cords unable to do more than whisper, "I need to use the restroom."
The corpsman eyed her warily. "I can't do that."
"But I really have to go."
"Sorry. Let me grab you a bed pan."
"Can you... can you at least loosen my legs up a bit? It's hard to... you know... go, strapped down like this."
He thought for a moment before sighing. He pulled on the strap across her legs to loosen the fastener. When she saw him reach down to adjust the fastener, she kicked, sending the ends of the strap flying and catching him in the jaw.
She shimmied down until the upper strap was over her head and reached up to blindly unfasten it. The wave of dizziness when she stood nearly ended her escape right then, but she managed to hold onto the bed until it passed and staggered to the sickbay door.
The guard she'd expected to find outside the door was there, but he'd obviously been expecting the corpsman, not one of the patients. In spite of the guard's larger size and the weakness imposed by her forced bedrest, Mallory's mania gave her the edge, and she soon stood above the guard's still body and reached down to relieve him of his cap-pistol.
She was too focused on her mission to get the captain to turn the ship around to notice the corpsman coming up behind her.
#
"So you escaped custody."
"I checked myself out," Sergeant Mallory corrected.
"Assaulting two people in the process."
"I wouldn't have had to, if they'd just listened to reason..."
"And you were planning on assaulting your commanding officer."
"I wasn't going to assault him, I was just going to..."
"Hold him at gunpoint until he agreed to turn the ship around."
"When you put it that way..."
"Sergeant Mallory," The colonel began. "It is the finding of this review board that there is sufficient evidence that you did willfully and knowingly escape from detention, assault two of your fellow scouts and did attempt to threaten your commanding officer in order to commit mutiny to bring you before a Court Martial. If convicted of all counts, you would face a minimum sentence of life imprisonment plus ten years.
"However, due to the recommendations based on your psychiatric evaluation and the personal recommendation of Commander McFarlain, as well as your previous service record, we feel that a Court Martial would not be in the best interest of the service.
"We therefore encourage you to submit yourself for further treatment. If said treatment is proved to be effective, these charges will be dropped and, if at all possible, a new place will be found for you within the service."
"And if I don't?"
"You will go to trial. You will be found guilty. If you are lucky, the judge will take the mitigating circumstances and you will be remanded for treatment."
"And after treatment?"
"You will be discharged."
"That doesn't sound like much of a choice."
"Don't get me wrong, Sergeant, as of today, your career in Planetary Survey is over. You will never be trusted in the field again. But it's up to you what else happens. A court martial conviction precludes you from any sort of civil service. It also limits your ability to emigrate. Many colonies will not take convicted felons."
"As opposed to me admitting I'm crazy."
The colonel hid a wince before answering, "You've admitted to everything else. Please, Sergeant. All that will show up on your record is that you requested treatment, and - given the nature of your last assignment - that would be completely understandable. Even without the other... complications."
Sergeant Mallory looked down, studying her shoes, and sighed.