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Two local weeks after Bookender’s announcement as to the real identity of the concluding resolution drug of choice, Gath was hosting yet another breakfast gathering in the clinic just prior to opening time. Taz was there, as it was her day to serve as the tech in the clinic, as was Bong, whose day it was not, but who always showed up when breakfast was being served. Conspicuously absent were Zen and Sax. Neither of them of had been to one of Gath’s breakfasts or dinners since that night.

It was not that they had been disinvited, Gath would have fed them had they shown up. It was that they no longer felt they were welcome at such events. Ever since the announcement and the flurry of debate that had accompanied it, rifts had been formed in friendships and working relationships when the friends and coworkers in question fell on opposite sides of the debate. The four medics continued to work together, but the interaction between them was now strained, even uncomfortable at times. They never spoke of their respective views on the debate. They hardly talked at all unless conversation was necessary to their jobs.

In the medic clinic at CVS was not the only place such rifts had formed. It was not an exaggeration to say that the rift was present throughout every unit of marines, naval personnel, science and engineering personnel, and civilian organization stationed anywhere in the entire Sol system. And the rifts were causing problems, both on the personal level and the operational level.

The ratio of those in favor of the concluding resolution as described versus those opposed to it stood, as best as anyone could figure, at about four to one. There were very few documented cases of someone being unsure how they felt on the matter, or indifferent to it. Opinion stood either on one end of the spectrum or the other. One was either vehemently opposed to the resolution or wholeheartedly in favor of it. As Zing had predicted, unit cohesion system wide had taken a hit and the efficiency of units, particularly those not involved directly in combat, had suffered correspondingly. Maintenance of aircraft and other vehicles had fallen behind schedule. Supply runs came in late, under-loaded, or, increasingly often, not at all. Aboard the fleet vessels in the system, repairs went undone and orders were questioned. At Homeport Topside and Homeport Ground, the highest levels of convolution were taking place. A good number of civilian port workers—who, when taken as an isolated group were a little less than three to one in favor of the resolution—were refusing to offload food products from Mars because the drug was within them. And at Homeport Ground the Fleet was having trouble getting ocean shipping crews—most of whom were groundborn and they, as a group, were more than two to one against the concluding resolution—to staff their ships and make the runs to the homebody ports. The Fleet whiteshirts were being forced to quickly cross-train unwilling and terrified spaceborn as floaties so they could at least get skeleton crews aboard the vessels and get them on their way.

The problem was so bad that Admiral Zing, the week before, gave a media conference and announced that he would like any member of the Fleet and any scientist or civilian operating as adjuncts to the Fleet in the Sol, to declare their opposition officially if they were opposed to following orders and assignments related to the concluding resolution.

“While I myself know in my heart,” the Admiral told them, “that there is nothing illegal or immoral about the concluding resolution, and that any orders given in support of it will be deemed legal orders that should have been followed once the issue is submitted for judicial review, I must respect and appreciate the fact that many of you are under the impression the orders are, in fact, illegal and are responding as you feel you must. I will make no attempt to sway you from your views, other than to remind you that if, after judicial review, the orders are ruled legal, you may be subjected to disciplinary measures up to and including discharge from the Fleet or even imprisonment. But that is not for me to decide. What I would like to ask, however, is that all personnel, military, scientific, and civilian, who are opposed to the concluding resolution in such a way that you will refuse orders related to it, give us that official declaration so we can know who we’re dealing with and in what numbers and therefore be able to formulate plans and reorganization strategies and bring about some return to unit discipline and cohesion.”

It was a reasonable request. For the most part, however, his plea fell upon unwilling ears. Those opposed to the plan were not interested in helping those in favor of it carry it out more efficiently. Nor was anyone willing to put one’s head in a noose—which is basically what an official declaration of opposition would be doing—until one had to. Official opposition declarations were filed—hundreds of them every day—but none were filed until an actual order was given that one had to refuse.

Gath had filed no such declaration yet. Neither had Bong. Neither had any of the other eighty-some-odd marines and civilians at CVS who had come out unofficially as being opposed to the concluding resolution. This was not to say that no one at CVS knew Gath or Bong or anyone else was opposed. Quite the opposite. Everyone pretty much knew everyone else’s stand on the matter. And, unlike with sexual matters, this knowledge was not kept in the proverbial closet. The tension and strife at CVS was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Anywhere that personnel got together the discussion was the concluding resolution. As on the bulletin boards and elsewhere in the system, there were no neutral opinions. Arguments broke out frequently as people fruitlessly tried to change the opinion of someone from the other side. Fights broke out as well. In the past two weeks the clinic had treated more than a dozen assault injuries and six marines had been remanded into custody for assault with potential of great bodily injury—charges that, if confirmed, could result in up to a metric year in the brig.

All in all, CVS, like the rest of the system, was not a happy place to be these days.

A rather graphic demonstration of this showed up at the clinic just as Gath was finishing up the potato, sausage and egg scrambles that were the breakfast of the day.

The buzzer at the clinic front door sounded, indicating someone without specific authorization was requesting entry.

Gath looked up at the time display. 0820 local. Still forty local minutes until the clinic opened.

“Meddy,” he spoke to the holo terminal, “who is at the door?”

“The person at the door is partially covering his face and I cannot make facial recognition,” she replied. “However, the rank and identification insignia on his shirt suggests the visitor is Lieutenant Sparksafroth of Second platoon. He does appear to be injured to some degree.”

“Sparky?” Bong said from around a mouthful of scramble.

“What the purg?” said Gath, who was filling his own plate. “Taz, go let him in.”

“Right,” she said, getting up and going to the door.

A moment later she returned, Sparky in tow. He was holding a bloody rag to his forehead. His marine corps duty shirt had a few drops of blood on it as well.

“Sparky,” Gath said. “What the purg happened?”

“I fell down,” Sparky said miserably.

“You fell down?” asked Bong.

“Yeah,” he said. “Cut my torkin’ forehead open. How about you humes stop asking me dumb questions and fix me up?”

“Right,” said Gath, putting his plate aside and standing up. He led Sparky over to one of the exam tables and had him sit down. “Let me take a look.”

Sparky pulled the towel away, revealing a ragged laceration of about twelve centimeters that ran vertically up the center of his forehead from just above eyebrow level all the way to the peak of where his hairline would be had he possessed any hair. The edges of the wound were crusted with clotted blood, as if it had already stopped bleeding once and then been reopened. The skin around the edges of the wound were dotted with dozens of little circular indentations that had come close to breaking the skin but had not actually done so. Gath was immediately suspicious of the story.

“You fell down, huh?” he asked Sparky. “Are you going to stick with that?”

“For the moment,” Sparky said with a sigh.

“What time did this happen?”

“About twenty-two hundred last night,” he said. “I didn’t think it was that bad at the time. I got the bleeding stopped and went to bed. This morning ... well, when I got up and tried to take a shower, it opened up again and I saw how deep it actually was.”

“You’re not hurt anywhere else?” Gath asked, pulling a sterile bandage from a tray and placing it over the wound.

“No,” Sparky said. “Just there. I really should be more careful.”

“You really should,” Gath agreed. He looked over at Bong and Taz, both of whom had gone back to eating their breakfast and were well out of earshot. “What really happened, Sparky?”

“I fell,” he said tonelessly. “Just like I told you.”

“Come on, Sparky,” Gath insisted. “You can’t ratslag me. I’m going to have to report this as a suspicious injury unless you give me some reasonable explanation I can work with, know what I mean? Just tell me what really happened and we’ll see what we can do.”

Sparky sighed. “Well ... I had a friend visiting my quarters last night.”

“Gnarly?” Gath asked.

“Uh ... yes,” Sparky said, surprise in his voice. “It was Lieutenant Viggs, as a matter of fact. How did you know that?”

“Lucky guess,” Gath said. “So ... Gnarly was visiting, and...”

“And, well she had had a few glasses of hooch ... you know, the stuff that Skank sells?”

“I’m familiar with it,” Gath assured him.

“Yeah, well, we started arguing about this Whoever damned concluding resolution slag.”

“She’s in favor of it?” Gath asked, knowing already that Sparky was opposed to it, though not officially as of yet.

“She is,” he said. “Things got a little heated. I might’ve called her a skarp.”

“Ooh,” Gath said, wincing. “Women really don’t like that word.” And they didn’t. Skarp was one of the many slang terms for a female prostitute. It was not meant to convey the meaning of a high-class prostitute, but rather one who was on her last legs and was trading sex for hooch or food or illegal intoxicants. To call any woman a skarp—even if she really was one—was about as hateful an insult it was possible to throw.

“No,” Sparky agreed. “They really don’t. And I really shouldn’t have said it, but she was tossing some pretty nasty slag at me too.”

“Of course,” Gath said. “So ... you called her a skarp, and...”

“She hit me,” he said.

“She hit you with what?” Gath asked.

“It’s not important,” he said, shaking his head. “She just hit me.”

“Come on, Sparky,” Gath said. “Give it up. There’s a really odd pattern to that wound.”

Another sigh. “It was a vibrating dildo,” he said, his eyes looking everywhere but at Gath.

“A vibrating dildo?” Gath said, eyebrows going up.

“Yeah,” Sparky said. “One of those ones with the straps on it so they can be worn. She swung it by the strap and hit me right in the torkin’ forehead.”

“What was a strap-on vibrating dildo doing in arm’s reach in a lieutenant’s quarters, might I ask?” Gath enquired, hiding a smirk.

“Uh ... well, it’s kind of a novelty item, you know?” Sparky told him, his eyes looking at the floor again. “Something I picked up as a joke up in one of those shops up on Topside. I don’t even know why I kept it. I don’t use it for anything, of course.”

Gath nodded, continuing to hide the smirk. “I’m sure you don’t,” he said. “Go ahead and take that shirt off and lay back on the table. I’ll get you fixed up.”

Sparky pulled the shirt over his head and lay back. “What are you going to put in your report, Gath?” he asked him.

“Well, according to regs, I’m supposed to report this injury to the MPs and let them know who inflicted it so they can bring her in for questioning and possibly charge her with assault with a deadly weapon.”

“Don’t do that, Gath,” Sparky pleaded. “It was just a disagreement and I provoked her. I don’t want to see Gnarly get in any trouble. She has a good career going. She’ll be up for company command in another year. Even if they only give her a minor assault charge, she’ll likely get bucked back down to sergeant and stay there forever. I don’t want that.”

“I don’t know,” Gath said thoughtfully as he pulled some wound cleaning supplies out of a drawer. “If I file my report endorsing your fall and bonked head story and someone finds out later that she assaulted you, I’ll be putting the aiming rectical on my slagger, you know what I mean. And since this concluding resolution ratslag started I’ve already got a few of those recticals seeking me out.”

“I would consider it a personal favor, Gath,” Sparky told him. “I’d owe you a big one.”

“That would do me little good if I’m under investigation,” Gath replied. “How do I know that Gnarly is not out there right now telling everyone about how she whacked the Whoever damned groundie lover across the head with a strap-on dildo?”

“She’s not,” Sparky assured him. “Once it happened she broke down and started crying, telling me she was sorry. She genuinely regrets doing it. She doesn’t want this getting out any more than I do. And it won’t happen again.”

“No?” Gath asked. “Are you two going to stay friends?”

He sighed. “We’re going to take a little break from friendship for the time being.” He shrugged. “There’s always other friends, aren’t there?”

“That does seem to be the tradition,” Gath said, glancing over at Taz for a second. He looked back at Sparky. “All right, Sparky. We’ll do it your way. You tripped in your quarters and fell down, striking a novelty strap-on dildo that happened to be on your floor.”

Sparky winced. “Do you have to put in the part about the dildo?” he asked.

“I have to explain those odd little pockmarks around the wound,” he said. “What are those anyway?”

“The ... uh ... device has all these little raised knobs on it,” he said, blushing. “I guess, like if someone was going to actually use the thing, you know, it makes the sensation better or something. That’s just a guess, of course.”

“Of course,” Gath replied, opening up a bottle of sterile saline. “All right. Let’s clean this thing up and put you back together. Let me put in a little local anesthetic first.”

“No, go ahead and let it hurt,” Sparky told him. “Maybe it’ll teach me a torkin’ lesson.”

It took about fifteen local minutes to clean and repair the wound. After the application of a little synthamino and the use of a portable ERE, the edges sealed together leaving a hint of scar tissue that would fade to nothing in a few days. Sparky remained stoic throughout the procedure, which was not without a fair degree of pain.

“There you go,” Gath said when he was done. “Almost good as new.”

“Thanks, Gath,” he said. “For everything, you know?”

“Hey, we groundie lovers need to stick together,” Gath told him. “Just be sure that when you call a woman a skarp you don’t have any sharp or blunt objects in her reach.”

“You should’ve told me that twelve local ago,” he said sourly, standing up from the table and putting his shirt back on. Once it was in place he looked at Gath meaningfully. “Are you still undeclared?”

Undeclared, meaning he had not officially come out against the concluding resolution because he had not yet been given an order to further it. “Still undeclared,” he told him. “That might change tomorrow though.”

“Oh?” Sparky asked.

“There’s a briefing tonight after clinic closing. A couple of cultural anthropologists are flying in from NAWM to go over plans to infuse the Modoc with the drug. Apparently, they are much more in favor of the concluding resolution than Yank was. It’s likely they’ll ask us to participate in whatever mission they’ve got cooked up. At that point I will be forced to respectfully decline and go on record as being opposed.”

Sparky looked a little concerned with this. “Interesting news,” he said. “This might be how they force my hand.”

“What do you mean?” Gath asked.

“If there’s a mission on, they’ll need marines to fly on it as overwatch. If they want to pull them from my platoon I’ll have to issue the orders. I’ll have to decline to do that.”

“There are eight platoons of combat marines on this base,” Gath said. “What makes you think they’ll pull from yours?”

“I’m the only combat platoon commander who is known to be in opposition to the concluding resolution,” he said. “The ultra-whites know that. If they pull from my platoon they force me to either give in or make my stand. That is what they want, either obedience or declaration of illegal order. Trust me, they’ll pull from my platoon.”

Gath nodded. “I suppose that makes sense,” he allowed.

Sparky shrugged. “Oh well. I guess it’s time to put my credits where my hooch hole is, huh?”

“It would seem,” Gath said. “Tell me something, Sparky, if you don’t mind?”

“Why am I opposed to the plan?” he asked.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Gath said. “I’m just curious. You’re a combat hardened marine and you’ve done what ... four, five tours here in the Sol?”

“This is my sixth,” Sparky said. “The first was twelve years ago when I was a grunt private who didn’t know his weapon from his gun. Every time I get promoted they send me back here for another tour or two.”

“So, you have no warm fuzzy feelings for the homers then,” Gath said.

“I do not,” Sparky assured him. “I believe there is no redeeming quality to these people and that Mortimer is probably a torkin’ blessing to them.”

“Then why the opposition?”

“Because what they’re planning to do ... what they’re already doing, is fundamentally wrong,” he said. “People can argue the semantics and the legal definitions all they want. This is genocide—destruction of a race of people. My college degree is in human history, did you know that?”

“I did not,” Gath told him.

“Yeah,” he said, “with the obligatory minor in military history. It’s a pretty common combo for those of us who want to move up the career ladder in the corps instead of just stay for a few years and move on to something else. So, I’m pretty down with the history of our people, both civilian and military. I’ve studied some of the things we’ve done in the past. Unlike a lot of my colleagues, however, I have actually absorbed the lessons in my history studies and one of those lessons is that what they’re trying to do here is wrong. Those in favor of it are going to be on the wrong side of history when this is said and done and they are going to be judged harshly when this all comes to light. And those who helped to carry it out...” He shook his head. “They are going to have to answer for what they have done. I am not going to be one of them. I will not lift a single finger or issue a single order that helps carry this genocide out. I only wish there was something I could do to put a stop to it before it goes too far.”

“Funny you should say that, Sparky,” Gath said. “I have a little idea I’ve been tossing around in my head. Maybe you can tell me what you think about it.”

“I’m listening,” Sparky said.

“The fundamental problem we have here is that no one outside of this system, particularly the groundborn, have any way of finding out just what is being done here. No ships are going in and out.”

“Do we have confirmation of that?” Sparky asked.

“Taz tells me that her husband, Ox, is stuck in the Sol system, his ship re-assigned to berth at Topside. He has been forbidden to go through the circuit point to First Cross for any reason. And his ship is not the only one. All ships currently in the Sol have been ordered to remain here. The Fleet is giving no reason.”

“That sounds like confirmation to me,” Sparky said.

“Yeah,” Gath said. “They’re not even bothering to come up with a ratslag excuse. And then there are the telemetry probes. That first one is not going to fire until it reaches five hundred petes. That will take another six to eight metric weeks at the rate data is accumulating now.”

“Right,” said Sparky. “And then another five to six weeks at each circuit point beyond since each successive probe has a higher data limit.”

“Net effect is a year to get information back to the AZ,” Gath said.

“Everyone has been ranting about this, in person and on the bulletin boards,” Sparky said. “No one believes that ratslag about the probe shortage. Even those in favor of the resolution know it’s just a ploy to keep the word about what we’re doing here from getting to the groundies before phase one is complete.”

“I understand all that,” Gath said. “But what if there was a way to get that telemetry probe to fire sooner?”

“Sooner?” Sparky said, his eyes probing. “How would you do that?”

“Not me alone, but all in opposition to what is going on here,” Gath said. “We flood that probe with data and get it to reach its threshold sooner. We try to get everyone in opposition to send as many documents, mail files, reports, general blathering, anything we can think of. If they’re high def holo file intensive, so much the better. If everyone puts in an effort to do this, that probe could reach threshold in a week, maybe less.”

“Hmm,” Sparky said, thinking it over. “It has some merit, maybe. What would we send? Random mail to people we hardly know? Reports on our bowel movements?”

“Anything you wanted, to whoever you wanted. The content and the recipient doesn’t matter, just the volume. HD holo needs to be attached to everything though. If you send a report on your bowel movement, you attach a Whoever damned HD holo file of it to support that report. If you mail some slaghole you barely know, you make sure he sees you in torkin’ high def and you ramble on for at least ten torkin’ minutes.”

“So, you want to put this idea out on the bulletin boards then?”

“Tork yes,” Gath said. “Send it out far and wide, to everywhere anyone is opposed to this plan.”

Sparky was nodding a little. “It could work,” he said, but then he suddenly shook his head. “At least for the first jump. It still has to accumulate enough data at the second, third, fourth, and fifth jumps to fire those probes as well.”

“What if we forward the bulletin board postings to the boards in the adjoining systems,” Gath said. “We spread the same idea in each successive system. I’ll encourage anyone who knows anyone stationed in First Cross, Alpha Centauri and beyond to address them personally with one of their messages and pass the word along to flood the telemetry probes there as well. And we don’t have to wait until the information gets all the way back to the AZ. Once it hits the Redreams system and the Coralis cluster, there are planets with groundborn living on them. That will get the outrage rolling toward the AZ like a spark in an oxygen leak.”

Sparky was nodding again. “It could work,” he repeated. “The emotion tied to this is pretty strong. I’m sure those of us against it will participate in this plan. I know that I sure as slag will. But do you really think that it will get the word to AZ before phase one is complete? They only need to infiltrate that drug for one hundred days.”

“And they’re having trouble with that one hundred days due to the opposition,” Gath said. “A good portion of the homers have still not taken their first bite of tainted food. The only homers who are getting a steady, unrelenting dose of it are the Opies who got their water spiked.” Something that I actually helped do, he could not help but remember.

“Well, it’s worth a try anyway,” Sparky said. “You can count me in. I’m going to take a nice high def shot of my next slag and send it to a few select ultra-whites I know.”

“Along with a complete report on the procedure,” Gath said with a smile.

“A report composed holographically,” Sparky agreed.

The briefing began ten minutes after the clinic closed for the day. Present were Bong, Zen, Sax, Gath, and Weasel. It was full of surprises, the first of which was that Colonel Lister, commander of CVS and all troops assigned to it, accompanied the two scientists from NAWM to the briefing.

Lister was second career age, and fairly late in that second career as well. Like many marines of command rank, he had spent both of his careers in the corps and was happy to tell anyone who asked—and many who didn’t—this little factoid. His physique was impressively fit as he ran twice as many kilometers per week as was required of him, just to say that he did. His skin tone was light, bespeaking of a primarily European ancestry. His eyes were dark, probing, and looked as if they had the ability to shoot lasers at you if he so desired. His white shirt of command and his shorts appeared to have actually been pressed by a machine.

“Colonel,” stammered Weasel when he saw the CO enter the clinic. “To who ... I mean to what do we owe this honor?”

Lister gave Weasel a brief blast of the laser eyes, making him almost cower. “This is no honor, Cooler,” he told him. “I’m here to make sure my base operates efficiently in these trying times.” He shifted his glance to Bong and Gath as he said this. He undoubtedly knew who the opposition members under his command were.

Gath tried not to let himself be intimidated. It was a tough job. “Welcome to the clinic, Colonel,” he said, offering his hand for the traditional shake and bump of subordinate meeting commander.

Lister stared at the hand for a moment and then reluctantly went through the ritual with him. He did not offer his hand to any of the other medics, however, nor did they offer theirs to him.

The second surprise was that the two scientists accompanying the colonel were not cultural anthropologists at all.

“I’m PhD Roosabelle Strange,” said the female of the group. She was second career age, a bit on the pudgy side, with short red hair and an impressive set of breasts. “You can call me Roos if you like. I’m a planetary fauna biologist specializing in aquatic life, fish in particular.”

“Fish?” said Bong.

“Fish,” she confirmed. “Cold blooded aquatic gill bearing vertebrates who inhabit the oceans and freshwater of planetary bodies. Perhaps you have heard of them?”

“Yeah,” said Bong. “I’ve heard of fish.”

“Excellent,” she said. “That will certainly make our upcoming mission a little easier.”

“What do fish have to do with anything?” asked Gath.

“We will get to that,” Lister said. He then nodded to the other scientist, a male of first career age whose brown hair and mustache marked him as a groundborn. This was confirmed when he began to speak.

“I am PhD Ogonnel Gross,” he said, the accent identifying as from the Gargant system two jumps beyond the AZ. “You may call me Oggy. I am a planetary botanist. My specialty is native, self-germinating plants.”

“A botanist?” Gath asked. “What about the cultural anthropologist?”

“We have no need of a cultural anthropologist,” Oggy said. “The one who was assigned to this region previously—PhD Yankeur, I believe her name was—did quite an admirable job recording and analyzing the behavior, customs, and lifestyle of the native homers who are the target of our attention. From her files we’ve learned enough to develop a plan on how to reliably infiltrate XC to the entire population of Modoc, as they are called.”

“You have?” asked Bong, sharing a glance with Gath.

“Indeed, we have,” Oggy replied.

“From her files,” said Roos, “we’ve learned that the Modoc diet consists primarily of trout and venison as meat sources, and primarily of acorns and blackberries as plant sources.”

“Trout and venison?” asked Weasel. “What are those?”

“Trout are the primary large fish that inhabit the Pit River and its tributaries. Venison is the meat of the wild, cloven hooved ruminant mammals that inhabit the forests around their population. We believe we have found a way to introduce the drug into the trout population on a consistent enough level to achieve therapeutic effect.”

“And,” added Oggy, “we have also developed a method for introducing it into their blackberry supply as well. This will serve as redundancy to maintain therapeutic affect in the event that our estimates of trout infiltration do not hold up.”

“So ... you’re going to give the drug to their fish and hope they eat it?” asked Sax, who looked rather doubtful about this.

“We will be using a genetic modification drug that will be infused about the spawning sites of the trout,” Roos said. “Once infused into the eggs, the adult fish will actually secrete the drug into their muscle tissue, which will then be consumed by the Modoc.”

“The blackberry infiltration works in a similar way,” put in Oggy. “We will perform airborne spraying of the blackberry bushes they harvest their fruit from. The spray will change the genetic code of the flora so the drug is produced and secreted into the fruit.”