Man O' War

for them to hear over the ringing in their ears.
"I suppose I'm not surprised. You've always had a very loud voice—but not enough bank to back it up."
"My apologies."
"If only that were enough," came the staticky voice. "But . . . anyway, stand up, you two. Let's get done."
As the couple rose, Marta asked, "What will you do"—her hand swept the room—"to explain all this?"
"What? Why—we will tell everyone what happened." The man lifted a hand so he could count off his explanation on his fingers. "How, in your hopeless despair, you all banded together in a suicide pact . . . assigned all your assets in a standard pooling packet to your surviving children, registered your remains to be nutri-vatted so that the early-retirement benefit could pass into the pool as well."
The black helmet swung back and forth sadly.
"Such a waste. If only you had had a stronger sense of vision, instead of filling your heads with nothing but resentment and defiance."
Turning his head away from his wife for a moment, Gerald stared at the unknown commander. Pulling forth all the juice he had within, cursing his weakness for having wasted any on tears, he said, "You want an act of defiance? I'll give you one."
He spat forth his last free drops. As they splattered against the black helmet, he shouted, "There. Recycle that."
Then he turned to his wife and kissed her. Their arms tightened around each other, their eyes closed, and they drew on each other's strength one last time before two shotguns erupted, knocking them back and down.
In his last seconds, Gerald heard the commander chastising his people for having wasted shells when he and his wife could just as easily have been clubbed to death. He wanted to laugh, but too much of his body had been destroyed. Although his brain had given the order, it was no longer connected to anything.
His eyes blinking, he saw a recycler moving a canister hose forward to suck the thin sliver of spittle from the commander's helmet. Then, as other recyclers moved into the room, Gerald finally died, at least spared from having to watch that final indignity.
1
LIGHTNING SPLIT THE SKY IMMEDIATELY BELOW THE MILITARY jet. Almost unaware of the growing storm, Benton Hawkes scanned the diplomatic corps' reports in his hands once more, hoping something would catch his eye that he might use in his own defense. Nothing in particular rose up to volunteer.
"Let's face it, Benton," he said, throwing the wad of printouts and notes onto the small user table the flight steward had installed next to his chair, "you've cooked yourself royally this time."
"Don't say that yet, Chief."
The voice came from a tired-looking younger man sitting at another of the small tables across the way. Rubbing at his eyes, he put down his own stack of papers.
"You'll see," he continued. "There's a way out of this. We just haven't dug down deep enough."
"No, no, I. . ."
"I'm serious. We just get the right spin . . ."
"No," said Hawkes. He spoke the word quietly, but his aide understood the finality intended. "It's over. I did what I did and that's all there is to it."
Hawkes picked up his drink and took a sip. It was a mixture of Amareno, Kahlua, Jack Daniel's, and milk, a concoction he and some camping buddies had created more years in the past than he cared to remember. They had named their creation "Happy Times," and the taste of one always reminded him of such. At the age of fifty-six, it was one of the few true pleasures he still enjoyed. He set the glass back on the table and folded his hands in his lap.
His aide said nothing, hoping that all the ambassador needed was a moment's rest. The younger man was visibly nervous. They would have to get back to work soon if they were going to piece together a political defense for his final actions during the Pacific Rim Unity Conference.
"Go get some sleep, Danny."
"I'm no more tired than you are, sir," answered the aide, choking back a yawn.
"Well, I'm damn tired, so go get some sleep so I can get some—all right?"
"But, sir—with all respect—if we don't come up with an ample American interest to justify what you did . . . I mean, sir, your career . . ."
"Has lasted ten years too long already." Hawkes pushed against the base of his spine, kneading his fingers into the ball of pain that had gathered there. "Now go on. There's only a couple of hours left before we land in Washington. Get some rest. You'll need it to look for a new job."
Daniel Stine, twenty-eight, top aide to his nation's foremost career diplomat, gathered up his papers again and made a step toward the door. Deep down he knew Hawkes was right. There was no political defense for what his boss had done. The ambassador had thrown his career away over a moral issue. Still shaking his head over the insanity of it, he put his hand to the door release, indexing the green panel.
"We'll find something, sir. We'll survive."
As the door sealed shut behind him, Hawkes shook his head, muttering, "Survive? I'll be happy if I can just get this crick out of my back."
Too much sitting, he thought as he continued to work the aching spot. Too much time spent looking through books and poring over regulations and working out arguments to keep this or that greedy bastard from legally stealing his enemies and his neighbors and his own citizens blind.
Suddenly his fingers moved just the right way and the pressure point in his back relaxed. Hawkes stretched his arms out to his sides and sighed in relief.
"Well, that's one pain in the butt taken care of."
The ambassador debated whether he should do any more work. He stared at the two different stacks on his table. One was made up of the corps reports he had filed during the Rim conference. If he