The Ties That Bind

By SSG Michael B. Jackson

	SGT Joanne Storm was no stranger to the battlefield.  Her previous experiences at Altair and Alpha Centauri had ensured that.  In fact, Joanne had a great deal of talent when it came to leading other marines in combat, as she’d proven many times over the last thirty-six objective years.  Granted, she’d only lived seven of those years, and fought for perhaps five of them, but her leadership ability was battle-tested.  
	Off the battlefield, though, Joanne had her share of problems.  She had never been a master of the social graces, and preferred solitary pastimes of both the intellectual and physical variety.  Sure, she’d had her share of ‘battle-buddies’ over the years, but then everyone did.  In a hostile, lonely environment where she and her fellow marines were often the only human beings within a dozen light-years, physical relations provided a crucial emotional crutch.  But, unlike some others, Joanne’s liaisons were few and far between, and never led to anything lasting.  This both dismayed and frustrated her from time to time, but for all the soul searching she put herself through, she was never able to admit to herself the reasons for her emotional skittishness.  She just couldn’t come to grips with the personal demons she’d been carrying around for her entire adult life.  Imagine her dismay, then, when she found herself face to face with one of them.
	At times, Colonel Anthony Carmichael swore that he felt the entire three hundred twenty-five years of his life resting on his shoulders, like a great weight trying to crush him into insignificance underneath it’s massive indifference.  This was one of those times.  The face before him was a familiar one, though altered by time, and presently distorted by shock and, oddly, tightly controlled anger.  But, even without the benefit of the nanoware processors knitted throughout his nervous system, almost automatically comparing the young woman in front of him with the sharp memory-image of the little girl he remembered, running various algorithms to bridge the gap of time, Tony would have recognized his own daughter anywhere.  It was her presence there in front of him that caught him off guard.  And to judge by the expression on her face, Joanne was equally surprised.  
	A situation brief, she’d been told, mandatory for all junior officers and NCOs, to be given by some big brass who’d come in system with the first TAF fleet over thirty years ago.  Looking back, she could see that it was obvious who that had to be, but it just hadn’t registered at the time.  She’d just been too busy in the rush and bustle that accompanied the fleet’s entry into the still embattled Sirius system to give it any thought.  
Now, face to face with the father who’d left her and her mother alone on Earth almost forty years ago, Joanne found herself barely able to concentrate around a flood of conflicting emotions.  As was, after the awkward pause in which the colonel recognized her, Joanne kept her eyes firmly on the wall screen as her skin-suit’s integrated nanoware made both audio and video notes of the meeting and snatched relevant complementary data from the FleetNet.  In fact, she pointedly refused to return his occasional glances in her direction.
	The brief turned out to be quite informative, despite Joanne’s uncertain feelings toward the briefer.  A great many things came out that hadn’t been in any of the fleet’s prior intel, and Colonel Carmichael was an engaging enough speaker to keep everyone’s attention, even Joanne’s.
	“First off,” the colonel said, “I’d like to welcome you to Sirius.  However, given the situation here, I’m not sure a welcome is entirely appropriate.  So instead, I’ll just say that your presence here is quite welcome, and leave it at that.”
	He paused for a moment, looking around the room, most pointedly at the daughter who still refused to meet his gaze, and then continued with a sigh.
	“At any rate, let me cut the bullshit out of this, and tell you first-line leaders what you need to know.  Rest assured, though, I’ll be re-inserting all that bullshit for the senior leader’s meeting later this evening.”
	He waited for the polite chuckles to die down, and then continued.
	“As it turns out, the intel you’ve already got is pretty good.  I reviewed your fleet INTSUMs on my way out here, and they’ve pretty much got the big picture right.  The enemy’s dispersal throughout the system pretty much matches what you’ve got, with a few small but very important changes, the most important of which concerns K’thara’s farthest moon, T’klell.  Up until just last week, we and the indigenous forces here had managed to keep the Myriad pushed back into the system’s Oort cloud and main asteroid belt.  Both of those have just too damn many hiding places spread all over hell and gone for us to effectively control.  That wasn’t a big surprise, of course, since we had the same problem at Sol and Alpha Centauri in the last war.  At any rate, just a few days before your arrival, there was a simultaneous push by several waves of Myriad forces from different directions all over the system.  They made a stab at several major installations and caused a lot of damage with low tau kinetic weapons, but the majority of them were destroyed or disabled before they could reach the inner system.  Unfortunately, we weren’t completely successful.”
	“K’thara?”, asked a gunnery sergeant.
	The colonel nodded.  “K’thara,” he said.  “The bastards managed to overwhelm our defenses and push through to the aerospace fleet center on T’klell, as well as drop a shitload of k-bombs on K’thara.  Worse, it looks like they managed to make moon fall on T’klell and dig in.  The bastards are worse for that than the Russians used to be.”
	“Russians?” someone at the back of the room muttered.
	“Never mind,” the colonel said, “ancient history.  Anyway, as far as we can tell, they dug in like ticks, and if they’re following their usual pattern, it won’t be long before they’re ready to let loose with some serious hurt on K’thara.  Not only that, but they’ll almost certainly launch a major offensive on other targets at the same time.  It’s what they’ve done in the past.  And, given that K’thara is the Sirian’s homeworld and the hub of TAF operations in the system, that would put us dead in the center of a world of shit.”
	A hand was raised near the front of the room.  “Yes?” the colonel said.
	“Sir,” said a young staff sergeant, “why don’t we just bomb the hell out of T’klell?  I mean, it’d suck to loose it, but from what you’ve said it looks like the Myriad pretty much own it now anyway.”
	“Well,” the colonel said, “that’s the brute force solution, but there are a couple of problems with that.  First, the Myriad have a habit of digging in so deep that nothing short of high tau k-bombs or antimatter will even reach them.  That in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, we’ve got the hardware if we need it.  The real problem is, there’s a significant civilian population and industrial infrastructure on the nearside, all the way around the moon from the aerospace facility.  The Myriad didn’t touch that, and obviously, if it’s at all possible we need to get those people out alive and keep the facilities intact.  Also, a significant portion of our fleet assets were tied up in dry-dock orbiting T’klell.  All of those ships are still there, and we can’t afford to loose them.  Worst of all, in addition to everything else they took, the bastards appear to have taken control of T’klell’s orbital and surface defense grids.  That makes it pretty damn difficult to get anything bigger than a gnat’s ass within a thousand klicks of the surface, which really puts a crimp on any counter offensive operations, if you know what I mean.”
	This was followed by a moment’s grim silence, and then someone near the back of the room said, “Ok, sir, so what’s the plan?”
	Carmichael gazed back at the speaker for a second, and then said, “Well, now, that’s the hot question on everyone’s mind, son.  I’m just here to give you the broad picture of the situation.  What actually happens from here is up the powers-that-be, of which I, unfortunately, am one.  There have already been a few all night planning sessions over this, and of course, now that you and your brass are here, your head-shed will have it’s two cents worth to throw in.  Hopefully, we’ll manage to come up with something effective before the damn Myriad start raining shit down on our heads.  At any rate, that’s about all I have.  Does anyone have any further questions?  No?  Well, then, I wish you all the best of luck, and I hope to see each and every one of you safe and ready to ship out for Procyon after we kick the Myriad’s collective ass here.”
	Joanne did her best to hide her relief that the brief was finally over, and made quickly for the door.  But not quickly enough.  
	“SGT Storm,” the colonel said, “could you please remain here for a moment?”
	“Sir?” she said in a cool tone, stopping and coming to the position of attention as the room emptied.
	The colonel frowned slightly, and said, “Joanne, it’s just you and I in here now.  You can relax.”
	Joanne stiffened, becoming even more rigid if possible, and said,“Begging the colonel’s pardon, sir, but given the present situation relaxation seems hardly appropriate.  I’m a non-comissioned officer in the Terran Armed Forces Marine Corps.  That implies a certain level of discipline and decorum, sir.  Now, begging the colonel’s pardon once again, if it’s at all possible, could we come to the point of this discussion, sir?  I have a great deal of work to do, and marines to take care of, SIR.”
	Carmichael’s face tightened as he hovered on the edge of anger, but then he seemed to sag somehow, as if all the fight had just left him.   Finally he said, “I see, sergeant.  Well, the point of this discussion is that a father, who hasn’t seen his daughter in a very long time, would very much like to take this unexpected opportunity to talk to said daughter and maybe catch up on the last couple of decades.  Does that fit into the sergeant’s schedule?”
	Joanne’s mouth hardened, and she said, “It would seem to me, sir, that if said father actually gave a damn about said daughter, he might have at least attempted some form of contact in the forty or so objective YEARS prior to their unexpected meeting.  In fact, it seems to me that if said daughter was such a low priority for all of that time, there couldn’t be much of any value to be said by either party.  Sir.”
	The colonel stared silently at Joanne for several seconds, and then, shaking his head, said, “Joanne, that’s not how it was.  When your mother disappeared after the bombing on Mars and you got shuffled into the refugee system, I lost contact.  I tried to find you, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do from the ass-end of a starship pulling two hundred gees hell-bent for election toward Sirius.  And once we hit the system, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of time for anything but fighting and dying for most of a decade.  I’d picked up the search again by then, but it was damn near twenty years after the fact.  All of the records had gotten so screwed up after years of k-bombing and rebuilding that I couldn’t even be sure you were still alive.”
	Joanne had listened in polite silence, but the hardness hadn’t left her face.
	“Is that all, sir?” she finally said.  “The colonel’s words have been most enlightening, but I have duties awaiting me.  Permission to carry on, sir?”
	Tony sighed, and said, “Of course, sergeant.  Far be it for me to keep you from your job.” 
	Joanne stepped off to the left as in marching, and headed for the door again.  But, as she reached the threshold, she stopped.
	Without turning, she said, “Sir, it does occur to me that, duties or no, a marine has to eat in order to fight.  To that end, if everything else goes as planned, this marine will be dining at DFAC four around 1800 hours.  Usually that’s just a fire-team-level event, but it is an open mess, if the colonel takes my meaning.  Sir.”
	The colonel relaxed visibly, a tight, relieved smile on his lips, and said, “Sergeant Storm, message received and understood.  I’ll see you there.  Dismissed!”
	Joanne left the room without another word, and strode briskly down the narrow corridor.  As she walked, she fought both a fluttery sensation in her stomach and a stinging in her eyes that she refused to let become tears.

	As close as they’d become over the years, it took no time at all for the three members of Joanne’s fire-team to pick up on the fact that something was bothering her.  She’d been subdued all through the team meeting she’d called to pass on the information she’d just gotten, and was so distracted during the evening equipment maintenance and pre-combat checks that she’d almost overlooked a potentially dead-lining deficiency in the weapons pod of her Light-Fighter suit.  That was so far out of character for her, or any other marine who’d managed to survive Altair and Centauri, that her teammates had felt it necessary to have a hasty, whispered conference among themselves while she took the malfunctioning weapons pod to the armorer for further attention.
	“What the fuck, over?” said CPL Jerome Johnson, a tall, massively built young man with skin of the deepest jet, and rich, dark brown eyes.  “Is it just me, or has the sergeant uploaded a virus of some kind?”
	LCPL Christina Martinez shook her head, her electric-green eyes flashing, and said, “It’s not just you, man.  Something’s eating her.  Something big.”
	LCPL Bahawabim Abdullah Khan nodded his dark head in agreement, and said, “Yeah, that’s for sure.  The question, though, is what.  I’ve never seen her like this, even after we lost Takashi and Valinkova in that last op at Centauri.  Sure, she was as broken up as the rest of us, but it didn’t affect her job.”
	Martinez frowned, and said, “Ok, so what do we do about it?”
	Johnson cocked his head slightly, and said, “Do about it?  What’s there to do?  If she wants to talk about whatever the hell it is, she will.  If not, that’s her business.”
	Khan shook his head slowly, and said, “No, Martinez has a point.  If this just affected her, it would be one thing.  But you saw what happened.  What if she missed something like that in the middle of a combat drop?  Not only could that get her killed, which none of us wants, but it could easily get one or all of us fucked up too.  If we’re really a team, we owe it to her and to us to find out what the hell’s going on, and if it’s anything we can help with.”
	Johnson sighed, and said, “Ok, then.  Do you want to be the one to ask her?  You know how she is about personal shit.”
	As Khan started to reply, Martinez preempted him, and said, “Oh, hell, I’ll do it.  But the timing’s got to be right for something like this.  Let’s wait and hit her up at dinner.  Things are about as informal as they ever get around here then.”
	Johnson and Khan both nodded in approval, and all three hastily went back to their preventative maintenance checks and services as Joanne walked through the doorway, evidently done with the armorer.
But as she went back to her suit to finish her own PMCS, they all glanced quickly at one another, and gave small nods of affirmation.

	As it turned out, the evening’s duties didn’t take quite as long as Joanne had thought, and by 1750 she and her team were already seated and eating.  Or, in her case, at least seated with a tray full of food in front of her.  Somehow, Joanne just couldn’t muster up much of an appetite at the moment.
	Naturally, Joanne’s lack of appetite didn’t escape the notice of her teammates, and only added to their concern.  After a few unusually silent minutes of dining, Martinez finally spoke for them all.
	“SGT Storm?” She said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
	Joanne looked up from her tray, which she’d been staring at for quite some time, and said, “Huh?  Sure, Martinez, what’s up?”
	Martinez sighed, and said, “Well, see, that’s the problem, Sergeant.  We were all kind of wondering what’s up.”
	Joanne blinked, confused, and said, “Say again?”
	Martinez glanced around the table briefly, making sure her teammates had her back, and then said, “Sergeant Storm, the four of us know each other pretty well, right?”
	Wondering where Martinez was headed, Joanne replied, “Well, yeah, I suppose so.  We’ve been on a couple of trips to hell and back together.  You don’t get to know people much better than that.”
	Martinez nodded in agreement, and said, “Exactly.  And every time we’ve gone out, you’ve led us there and gotten us back.  If nobody’s ever said so in so many words, I don’t think there’s anybody here who wouldn’t be happy to storm the gates of hell with you if you asked.  But- “
	Joanne, moved by Martinez’s words but still wondering where she was going, said, “There’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there?  But what?”
	Martinez paused for a moment, and then said, “But something’s up with you, Sergeant.  Your mind’s been in low orbit all afternoon, and we’re all a little worried.  I mean, we understand personal business, but that thing with your suit scares us all.  If it were one of us, I’m pretty sure you’d want to know what the hell was up too.”
	For just a second, anger flared inside Joanne.  ‘How dare they!’ She thought.  But then she realized that Martinez was right.  If the situation were reversed, she’d have been just as concerned as they were.  In fact, it was a testament to just how good a marine fire-team they were that they’d had the intelligence and intestinal fortitude to confront her with this.  Her anger melted, and she felt instead a mixture of pride and affection for them all.  
	Joanne looked back down at the table, composing herself, and then looked around at all three of her marines in turn before she felt able to speak.
	“Ah, hell,” she finally said, “It’s… complicated.” 
    	Johnson, suddenly flashing back to a piece of gossip he’d heard earlier, snapped his fingers and said, “Hey, Sergeant, does this have something to do with the INTSUM briefing you went to?  I heard something about the colonel asking you to stay afterward.”
	Joanne shook her head, and said, “Jesus, nothing gets past the grapevine here, does it?”  And then, sighing, she said, “But yeah, you could say it had something to do with that.”
	Frowning, Khan said, “What the hell would an Echo Force Ranger be asking a marine sergeant to hang around after the meeting for?  Unless you fell asleep while he was talking or flipped him the bird on the way out, he couldn’t even know you well enough to chew your ass for anything.  Could he?”
	And then Martinez broke in, saying in a suspicious tone, “Hey, wait a minute.  He didn’t make a pass at you, did he?  Is that what’s got you so upset, Sergeant?  Because if so, I’ll take a trip down to the armory, suit up, and kick his ass myself.  You don’t even need to worry about filing a complaint.”
	Joanne snorted at this, and said, “Ah, hell.  You know, I’m glad you guys have my back, but it’s nothing like that.  It’s-“
	But as she said this, she saw, making his way through the DFAC’s main entrance, the object of their conversation.  
Colonel Charmichael, well over seven and a half feet tall thanks to the modifications that had been made to him over two and a half centuries earlier, had to duck on his way through the door.  And no sooner had he entered than the nearest marine yelled, “At Ease!” at which point everyone stopped eating and the entire mess went respectfully silent.
The colonel sighed, and, moving toward the serving line said, “Carry on.”  The mess immediately came back to life, but all eyes stayed on Charmichael as he grabbed a tray and served himself at the automated line.
At Joanne’s table, her teammates, who’d been gawking like everyone else, turned back to her, curiosity written large upon all their faces.  Finally, Johnson said, “Well, now, what are the odds of that happening?  Sergeant?”
Joanne shook her head, and said, “Just wait a second, and you’ll see.”
As her teammates stared at her in puzzlement, the colonel finished selecting his meal, and started in their direction.  When he reached the table, all four of them jumped to attention.  The colonel, obviously expecting this, simply said, “Carry on,” in a slightly tired tone.  Looking to Joanne, he said, “Sergeant Storm?  May I?”
Blushing, aware that every eye in the chow hall had to be on her, Joanne said, “Of course, sir.  I was expecting you.”
Charmichael nodded, and sat at the head of the table.  Looking around at the incredulous faces of Joanne’s team, he said, “So these are your marines.  Care to introduce me, Joanne?”
There was a quiet collective gasp at the use of Joanne’s first name, and her blush deepened.  Finally, she said, “Certainly sir.”  And then, pointing to each in turn, she said, “CPL Jerome Johnson, LCPL Christina Martinez, and LCPL Bahawabim Khan.  The best damn fire-team in this fleet, sir.”
The colonel nodded, smiling, and said, “I can buy that, sergeant.  They look like a pretty capable bunch.”  And then, addressing the three, he said, “By the way, I’m Colonel Charmichael, but from the looks on your faces, I’m guessing you already knew that.  And I’d also guess that Joanne probably hasn’t said a whole lot else about me.  That about right?”
Taking up the roll of group spokesman, Martinez said, “Yes, sir, that’s about right.  But, sir, what else is there to tell?  Is there something between Sergeant Storm and yourself?”
The colonel, picking at his food now, said, “Well, I think that’s a subject that Joanne would have to broach.  If she’s not too embarrassed, that is.”
Joanne frowned, and said, “Sir, you know better than that.  It’s just that- Well, hell, it’s kind of hard being the daughter of a living legend, that’s all.”
Dead silence and startled looks followed this pronouncement.  Finally, though, Khan found his voice and said, “Holy shit!  He’s your dad?”
Joanne met Khan’s gaze and said quietly, “Yeah.  But it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.  About forty years, depending on your frame of reference.  I was only thirteen when he shipped out.  A lot’s changed since then.”     
Martinez jumped in and said, “Oh, my God!  This is so cool!  Sergeant Storm, why didn’t you ever say anything about this before?”
Joanne laughed, and said, “Would you have believed me?  ‘Yeah, hey, by the way, guys, my dad’s the commander of the Outland Rangers.  Oh, and my mom?  She was a U.N. Marshall, but she disappeared on Mars after one of the k-bomb strikes.  And my older brother!  Well, we never actually met, since he died over a century before I was born, but I’m sure you’ve heard of him?  CPT Jack Charmichael?  Starhawk?  First man to leave the solar system?  Set up the Centauri colony single handedly?  You know, shot out of the sky approaching Sirius a few decades later, becoming the first KIA of the First Interstellar War?’  Shit, if I’d told you any of that, you’d have laughed me all the way back to Sol.”
There was silence and another round of incredulous looks as Joanne’s teammates suddenly realized that their team leader was, in fact, directly related to figures they’d all read about in their history texts.