Semper Fidelis

Pain dragged him back to consciousness. He registered it, struggling through choked and throbbing confusion toward awareness. Pain. Pain is information.

He shivered against the cold floor, listening to the harsh whisper of his breath, taking stock. The floor was a concrete slab, or some alien equivalent. Patches of raw flesh on his face and the heels of his hands told him he had fallen forward, had tried and probably failed to catch himself. The hot throb of his knee was different; twisted and bruised, possibly sprained, but not scraped. He was still in uniform, they hadn't stripped him. His left hand pounded, feeling swollen to a grotesque balloon; he concentrated until the pain settled into two fingers, a sickening grate of bone against bone. He opened his eyes, only then realizing that they had been closed, and squinted: definitely broken. Snapped and dislocated like twigs.

Only two fingers, and he was right-handed. It was only pain. He could still function.

He was bruised, badly, over his torso and arms where he had been beaten; he could feel that and dismissed it. The stabbing agony low in his belly was more ominous, though; he thought of ruptured organs, internal bleeding, peritonitis. Shifting experimentally, he gasped, and then almost laughed at himself, a croaking rattle. Not an injury, not this. Something he could ease.

He relaxed his bladder, consciously, and let it flow. The pain gave one last vengeful surge, worse than anything before, and began to fade; warmth spread across his crotch and thighs. He allowed himself a few rationed seconds of luxuriating in it, then turned his mind away. The chill would make the wetness clammy and dangerous; he would have to watch himself for hypothermia.

He was Corporal Tyrus Cassius McQueen of the United States Marine Corps. He had been captured by the enemy, the aliens. He was not going to give up.

He had not yet moved from the sprawl he'd woken in. Now he turned his head, carefully, and waited out the expected rush of nausea, waited for his eyes to focus. No double vision; that was a good sign. He pushed himself carefully up onto an elbow and looked around.

A cell, as he'd expected. He was still planetside; there were no windows, but the walls, as well as the floor he was on, didn't look like any probable shipboard material, and the gravity was a little short of Earth-normal, as it had been ever since they'd hit dirt on Sestus. Nobody knew much about the aliens, but he doubted that their shipboard gravity - their home gravity, presumably, of whatever their home planet was - would happen to duplicate that of a mudball five jumps out from Sol. Good. He at least had a shot in hell of escaping from a ground installation; if he'd been taken on board, probably the best he could have hoped for would have been to make some trouble for the enemy before he died. He didn't figure anybody would be too interested in rescuing him, or arranging some sort of prisoner exchange. Not for him.

He sat up, and coughed once before stifling it; his throat still burned. He touched his good hand to his face. Blood, he'd expected that, had felt it stiff on his upper lip and cheek already. He had bled from the nose and scalp; there was a lump there, as well, where he must have hit the floor when he fell. Blood from his right ear; that was worrying, but there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't tell if his hearing was damaged; the cell was silent, and he didn't have the strength to speak yet. He felt around further, to the back of his neck, and found blood oozing from his navel as well.

He touched it gently, the nub of flesh at the base of his skull that marked him for what he was. Where the cerebral umbilical had fed him, taught him, trained him with coded protein and RNA drips into his brain. Tank-grown slave labor - well, not legally, but to all intents. Cannon fodder, now, with the war in space going so badly. Physically human, genetically human, but - not human. No, there would be no prisoner exchange, no treaty negotiation on his behalf. He knew better than to expect that from natural-born humans.

But he was a Marine. They might have made him for a soldier, but he would make himself a Marine. If he died doing it. And he would; if not here and now, then later.

Ready to fight, ready to kill, ready to die but never will; he remembered the cadence from boot camp. He'd known better, of course, but he'd liked the effrontery of it. And he had been ready to die since he'd been decanted, but he'd never wanted to, and he was damn well going to try not to now.

He shifted and caught himself painfully with his left hand as he swayed, dizzy. He couldn't stand up. But he wasn't going to lie down, either, as a prisoner in an enemy base. Besides, the cold floor sucked the heat from his body; he was still shivering, a constant involuntary trembling. He had to minimize his contact with it. They hadn't interrogated him yet, had just beaten him for a while - he remembered the clicking chitinous insectile forms, nothing he could recognize as fists, but they did the job well enough. Then they must have tossed him in here, while he was barely conscious. But he expected that they'd be back, the interrogation would begin at some point; they were just letting him soften up. It was worth it, if he could go down proudly, go down fighting. Go down with his honor clean.

He wondered if the rest of the squadron had made it out.

Eleven of them, ten natural-borns and one in-vitro, ten privates and one corporal so newly promoted that he still couldn't quite believe the double chevrons on his shoulders. The symbols of his authority over the others - authority over humans, something unimaginable to him for so many years. Eleven of them fleeing a battle that had become a rout, stumbling through a screaming midnight howl of enemy fire, shells and drifting clouds of gas and the searing actinic glare of explosions that burned their eyes. Fleeing toward a base that was a hopeless fifty miles away, even if they were still headed in the right direction, with the transports and the bodies of the lieutenant and both sergeants and the corpsman and the radioman and all the rest blasted and broken and abandoned behind them. And behind them too, coming closer, were the tall shadowy forms of the enemy, firing rounds from hundreds of meters away that burned black-rimmed holes through flesh and bone, appearing and disappearing through the smoke of the starless, moonless alien night. McQueen was carrying his rifle in his hands, another slung over his back that he had snatched from a corpse, and he fired back when he could, grim pleasure flaring in him whenever he saw one of the angular forms crumple. But there were too many of them, always more than he could kill, and even he, genetically tailored for sharp vision and quick reflexes, missed far more often than he hit.

The ground was torn with shellholes, uneven, rocky, and bitter; they stumbled over it, gasping, desperate. Someone had told him, back when the mission began, that Sestus was a farming colony, that it fed untold millions of Earth's starving masses. Presumably the aliens wanted it for themselves, or they understood its strategic importance. Slipping and clawing at the dirt, McQueen thought that nothing could possibly grow in it now, poisoned as it must be by radiation and gas and wreckage and the blood of humans and aliens both. But defending it was the job he'd been given, defending it on the ground because the weapons of the big space-going warships would have sterilized it to a glass puddle. Ground warfare on both sides, then, and he and the remnant of his squadron fleeing hopeless through hell.

They gained the top of a small rise that ended abruptly in a sharp drop, a five-foot cliff that they half-fell over, tumbling down to lie gasping in cover. Sheltered for a few moments, until the ones they knew were flanking them came far enough around to have them in line of fire again. McQueen looked at them all, feeling the chevrons he was wearing more than he felt the burning of each breath from the whiff of gas he'd gotten. "Who's wounded?"

No one said anything. Mfune shrugged, awkwardly, and McQueen could see the scorched cloth of his sleeve, the raw and blistered flesh underneath it. But Mfune could still run, and if he had to he could still shoot. They all knew that there was nothing that could be done, anyway. Mfune would die, now or later, with the rest of them.

He drew breath to give the order to move out again, and then the sounds shifted, a signal flare of a different color burst over their heads, and they whirled, staring through the haze and havoc, across the hostile, uneven landscape, to where a ship was settling to ground. Not an alien ship, McQueen could see that, and he called it out while the humans were still squinting painfully, afraid to wonder: "It's ours! Goddammit, it's a rescue transport!"

They were too exhausted to cheer, but they tensed, feeling a surge of energy from unknown reservoirs. And then, even as they climbed to their feet again for the last run - a mile? two miles? It was impossible to judge distance in the chaos, but surely not farther - even as they readied themselves and as McQueen began to think that they might actually get out of this alive, an enemy patrol appeared around the side of the hill, and there was a burst of muzzle flashes, and someone's head blew apart with a sudden muffled thump.

"Go!" McQueen shouted, already returning fire, and his throat seemed to tear open with the sound, the gas burn agonizing. "Goddammit, go!" There were maybe twenty aliens, far more than they could fight off, and if they all ran they'd be shot in the back, all of them, he could see that in a single glance at the way they'd have to go. But he had a little cover here, if he ducked back, away from the treacherous route to rescue, he could cover the others, keep the enemy off their asses for a few minutes, maybe enough, just barely enough - "That's a fucking order!" he screamed at them, and they turned and fled, leaving him behind like all the others, dead like all the others, but not yet. Not yet, and he laid down a barrage of fire that had the rifle bucking and jumping in his hands, had the aliens shrinking back; they sent a few shots toward the disappearing remnant of his squadron, but McQueen didn't even look to see if anyone had been hit. He knew what he had to do, and he unslung the other rifle from his shoulder, set it ready beside him, and sold his life at the best price he could get.

But he wasn't dead. He breathed carefully, testing his lungs; the ache from the gas seemed to have eased a little. He felt at his broken fingers, considering trying to set them, or at least pull them straighter, but decided not to. He didn't really know how to do it, and they were going numb anyway. Or perhaps he was only growing used to the pain.

Why had he done it? He didn't remember making a decision, not consciously; it had just been obvious. If he stayed behind and covered them, they might get out.

Maybe because they were all dead anyway, he was dead anyway, so it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. It was unlikely that any of them had lived through the gauntlet-run to rescue. How ironic if he, the suicide defender, was the last survivor.

He had never expected to live even this long. Like all in-vitros he had been decanted at a physiological age of eighteen, so that he would have adult strength and intelligence, with no lengthy and expensive childhood. He had spent the first five years out of the tank in a mining colony, seeing the sky only a few times in all those years, and watching dully as one after another of his batchmates, the forty-nine others who had been gestated, decanted, and trained with him, died in accidents, in malfunctions, in cave-ins. Safety measures were expensive, more expensive than in-vitro labor; the mine's human supervisors couldn't be bothered. He had never expected to survive, and though he hadn't wanted to die, had never wanted to die, he'd been resigned to it.

And then the war had come. He had been taken abruptly from the mine, had lost track of his few remaining batchmates in the onslaught of basic training and the shock of not merely a new world, but a new world view. His life was as regimented and subjected as ever, but for the first time it was something more, too. Still an in-vitro, but a Marine as well.

He stiffened, lifted his head a little at a noise. The door to the cell opened with a grating scrape, and two aliens were there, one standing back as a guard while the other hauled him to his feet and dragged him out and down the hall.

This time was far worse than before. Rather than the crude brutality of blows, they had a device of some kind, thin sharp blades and something like glittering tweezers that picked at the nerves in the cuts they made, sending screaming agony to flame along his body until he sagged, gasping, in his bonds, hardly able to believe that his flesh was not truly charring; he had almost thought he could smell it. And they had a vocoder box now, a translator; they chittered and clicked to one another over his bleeding body and the box barked staccato demands.

"Why should you suffer? Tell us what you know of troop movements, strategy, and the pain will stop."

But he knew nothing, a private until five days ago when casualties had mounted to the point that promoting an in-vitro was better than giving the rank to someone practically still a boot. He knew where his platoon had been ordered, and he knew that none of them were still there; the aliens knew that too, since they had driven them back or killed them. Beyond that, he knew nothing of any value, and he had no reason to think that the pain would stop even if he did. And pain was unpleasant - awful, horrific - but he was used to it.

"Why should you suffer for them? They left you to die."

He almost laughed at that. He had left himself to die, had ordered the others away with a curse that he had never dreamed he would dare to shout at a natural-born human; early conditioning lasts long, but it can be overridden and unlearned.

He wondered again why he had done it. Maybe because they were human, natural-born, and he was not; they deserved, more than he did, any chance at life. Maybe conditioning couldn't be so fully overridden. He didn't want to think that, but he couldn't help wondering.

And then he couldn't think anything, except that someone somewhere was screaming, screaming horribly, and someone should really help him, it was too bad to leave him suffering like that.

He woke up back in his cell again, and the pain told him that he was alive. All the same pains - his fingers, his throbbing knee, the dull ache of bone-deep bruises - combined now with a net of fire across his skin and a headache that had him moaning. The floor was deadly cold where his uniform had been cut and torn away. He rolled feebly and retched a thin dribble of bile.

It was only pain. No broken bones, except the fingers; no torn muscles. He could sit up. He had to. They hadn't killed him yet.

His body was patterned with incisions, some shallow, others deeper and still bleeding. He shuddered, remembering the delicate golden probes feeling for the nerves. How had they learned enough about human anatomy, human physiology, to design such an effective torture device?

That was information. If he lived, he had to report it. It might be important.

His left sleeve hung in tatters, but the right was almost whole. Awkwardly he lifted his left hand and touched the insignia on his shoulder. He couldn't feel it, except with his thumb; even the unbroken fingers were numb to everything but their own pain. But with his thumb he could feel the corporal's chevrons. He'd given the humans an order, and they'd obeyed. Maybe they'd wanted to, wanted to leave him there to cover their retreat. Maybe they hadn't. Either way, they'd obeyed.

And he was here. If they were alive, if they'd been rescued, it was partly because of him.

There was a sound coming from somewhere, and for a few minutes he wasn't even sure if it was a true sound, couldn't tell it from the hoarse sob of his breath and the moaning he couldn't seem to stifle. But it was different, he finally decided: a muffled roaring, punctuated by dull bursts that might be explosions.

A battle. He worked it out slowly, frustrated at his own sluggishness. He dragged himself closer to the door of the cell; his vision whirled and dipped sickeningly with the effort, but when he pressed his ear to the cold rough surface, he could hear more clearly. Grenades, maybe, and someone shouting.

A human, shouting.

The base was under attack.

An attack meant confusion, opportunity. His best chance. He gritted his teeth and hauled himself to one knee, the bad one, so that he could push himself up with his good leg if the door opened. Not dead yet. He thought he might be able to manage one blow. Maybe he'd be able to grab a weapon. Or maybe he'd be shot immediately as a nuisance. We have fought in every clime and place. He was still fighting.

But when the door did open he couldn't force himself upright; he staggered forward on his knees and clawed desperately at the shape blocking the gap, and felt himself grabbed by warm human hands and lowered to the floor. "Jesus, look at this poor bastard," someone said.

There were hands on him, straightening his legs, quickly touching his twisted fingers, pulling the sodden shreds of his uniform aside to check his wounds. "Jesus," the voice said again. "Get the medic, somebody. Quick."

"Hold it," said someone else, sharply. "Is that - ?" He felt his sleeve pulled; the speaker was checking the insignia. Then he slid a hand under McQueen's neck. McQueen groaned as his head was rolled. He knew what the other was feeling for.

"It's Corporal McQueen," said the second voice. "From the 129th, remember; Mfune's squad? The one Mfune said kept them together, got them out. He ordered them ahead, they figured he must've been killed . . ."

Not yet, McQueen tried to say. Not dead.

Someone else thudded to the floor beside him, and he gasped and tried to flinch as his eyelids were peeled back to a searing light. "Concussion," someone said. The medic.

"Be careful with him, dammit," the second voice snapped. "There's seven men in the 129th owe their lives to him. That's a hell of a Marine."

Oh, thought McQueen, with the last dregs of consciousness. Yes. That's why I did it.

I was in command. They were my responsibility.

A hell of a Marine.