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III.
The first time McCabe achieved a perfect score with a real gun in a real Academy range, shot after shot falling in place, they wondered if this was what it was like to fall in love - each lurch of uncertainty eliminated by the revelation of success.
Ridiculous comparison. Either last week’s propaganda assignment or their roommate’s diatribes on the proper structure of romance novels was getting to their head. Or that the last time they’d tried to find a free training room, they’d found two of their classmates very busy with each other.
Seriously, McCabe thought, you’d think we weren’t six years into a war, the way some of them are. It wasn’t like McCabe didn’t have...urges (Not that it was anyone else’s business.). It was that they had priorities.
The Republic was depending on them. On all of them here at the Academy, while light years away, systems and planets collapsed. Intelligence hadn’t been hit as hard as the frontline forces, but surely that meant even more ought to be expected of them?
Not that they would say as such out loud, not after the first time. They knew what the other students muttered under their breaths, had been muttering since they’d introduced themself and said louder when the instructors were out of sight. The Republic was always on the lookout for new threats, and McCabe’s fellow trainees made the mistake of assuming they would be easy to label as one.
When McCabe went home to Martineau for mid-semester break, they could tell Mom and Dad were trying to ask about it, in a roundabout way. McCabe ignored it and moved on to other aspects of Academy life. They were an adult, not a child who needed their parents’ protection, and McCabe suspected protection wasn’t on the table. More an “I told you so”, or a “it would be easier if you-”
The Academy was a strange relief to come back to. The name “McCabe” meant nothing here, that much was different from Martineau, but the resentment was as pointless. McCabe still had the best grades. The best marksmanship scores. Never failed an inspection. They started setting records in their second year, and that shut up some muttering idiots.
It made a few louder, full of claims that it made even more sense McCabe was one of those, look how hard they worked at pretending not to be. McCabe bit down on retorts, like, “proving the same conclusion with opposing pieces of evidence is an obvious error, did none of you pay attention in Basic Analysis last semester?”
None of them mattered. They didn’t make the decision, there wasn’t some kind of vote among peers.
If McCabe was good enough - objectively, on every measurable metric - the Republic couldn’t afford to not use them.
And McCabe was good. It wasn’t every second-year at the Academy who got after-hours range access, or who got selected for the CIU student program over December break.
They could return home instead. No blockades had cordoned off Martineau, the major spaceports on the route home hadn’t been attacked. They could see Mom and Dad for the holidays. Say hi to Nan. No chance of Ferdy. Even the location of his last posting was classified.
McCabe signed up for the program. It would be a real show of dedication, an early opportunity to hop on to the Intelligence track. Eagerly swiping through the program’s schedule, they distractedly noted that they’d always worked better for Mom and Dad on paper than in-person. Ought to attach this semester’s report, marksmanship scores and all to their latest missive home. That would keep their parents satisfied.
What would keep McCabe satisfied, however, was the thought of finally getting to touch a real-life purpose-built sniper rifle, not just some modded pistol.
II.
“Whoo!” cheered Nan, as RJ unsteadily tipped their third shot back, the liquor burning down their throat. They were still sputtering when the shot glass landed back on the table, Nan thumping their back and cheering again. “That’s how we do it, Rylie Jo!”
Their breathing calmed. Wow, did their chest feel warm. Did they really need the jacket they were wearing? There were a lot of people in this barn, and the lights were very bright, and in RJ’s very reliable calculations that meant they didn’t need a jacket anymore.
Nan’s tanned hand covered their own when RJ’s zipper reached the bottom of the jacket. “Warm already?”
RJ pulled it off, nodding at Nan. “Yes.”
“Uh huh.” Nan steered them to a nearby couch, their own shot glass already empty somehow. The couch had some suspicious stains on it. But it was in the corner, and the music didn’t blast as loud here, so RJ decided they didn’t care very much about those stains at all.
RJ plopped down on the couch. “Woah.”
Nan shot them a wry look, like there was a joke she was in on that she hadn’t told RJ yet. That was okay, because it was Nan. “How are we feeling?”
“Fine!” RJ waved her off. “Did you do more than me?”
“Yes? It’s not a competition, RJ, did I need to say that?” Nan raised an eyebrow. “And I do have more practice compared to you, drinking for the first time ever at your first party ever.”
RJ scrunched up their face. “And what number is this for you?”
“Sure you wanna know?” Nan leaned in, her voice low. “It is super illegal.”
“I didn’t”-RJ coughed, fidgeting with their hands, “it’s a misdemeanor-”
“Already memorizing the statutes?” Nan nudged RJ’s knee with her own.
The real reason was that RJ looked it up the first time Nan mentioned these parties. RJ muttered, “But we’re already sixteen, and if our parents were here this would be completely legal, and I only really have one and a quarter years left...”
“Glad to know I can still corrupt my best friend!” Nan presses a fist to her chest. “Getting you out here might be the pinnacle of my high school career, don’t know how I pulled it off.”
“I”, said RJ plainly, “said I was sleeping over at yours. Which we are, later.” RJ punctuated this statement with some kind of hand gesture, and they’re not sure what or why. “And your parents are cool about covering for us.”
“My folks are pretty cool,” said Nan, “Even if they’re ‘no McCabes’”
“You know,” said RJ, examining the barn’s beams, “I think we technically own this barn too?”
“...Maybe don’t mention that in front of Felix.”
“Wait, isn’t his dad super-strict? How’d he-”
Nan’s eyes widened. “Didn’t you hear? He finally got called up from the reserves. They must be getting pretty desperate if they’re pulling solo parents in too.”
“Yeah,” said RJ, and a silence fell across the couch. RJ wasn’t going to bring him up, RJ was-
RJ was going to be very sick, very soon, and they staggered towards the exit, frowning at every person who got in their way.
“Throwing up?” Nan trailed behind.
“Shut up,” said RJ.
And Nan did, until RJ stopped puking into the ditch behind the barn, their knees pressing into the dirt. Her palm rubbed RJ’s back in circles. “Aw, honey, I did tell you to take it easy.”
RJ spat into the ditch. “And then you started cheering.”
“Positive reinforcement? I offered you a bottle of something much lighter, you’re the one who refused it.” Nan passed RJ a stack of napkins she must have swiped on their way out. Her words grew heavier. “Should’ve remembered you don’t take anything easy, though. Runs in the family.”
“Nan-”
“Forget it.” Nan gave them a bright, shaky smile. “Forget I said anything. It’s your first party, we haven’t lost a battle in two weeks, let’s get you some water and enjoy the night while we can.”
Plaintively, McCabe said. “You could come too.”
“What?”
“To the Academy. If you focused or if I-”
“That’s flattering, RJ.” Nan met their gaze. “I think we both know that isn’t happening, not for me. But you’ve got a real chance, don’t you? Not just your folks shooting their mouths off.”
“Yeah,” said RJ, “I think so.”
“Well, then.” Nan grasped RJ’s shoulder. “Show them how we do it on Martineau, yeah?”
I.
RJ’s shot knocked off the last metal can. They counted up in their head. Twelve shots to hit ten wasn’t too bad.
“Geez, Ry.” Ferdy blew a low whistle, angling his cap to block the light of the sunset facing them. “Sucks that you and Mom’s Partha trip got cancelled, you would’ve been way better than me at real guns.”
“What did the dwarnians even want with a hunting planet?” RJ picked up the cans. “Food?”
“Who knows why they do anything,” said Ferdy, helping RJ line up the cans on the fence.
“You want a go?” RJ proffered the air pistol.
“Nah.” Ferdy slouched back against the storehouse wall. “You keep going.”
RJ fell into a comfortable rhythm, hitting one can, then the second, then the third. An evening breeze swept through, not quite knocking any cans down itself but helping with RJ’s fourth.
“Did you see they knocked down the enlistment age to sixteen?” asked Ferdy.
“Of course I saw,” huffed RJ. They were a very well-informed thirteen-year-old, thank you, and had been a very well-informed twelve-year-old even before there was an intergalactic war going on and Ms Huang at school exhorting everyone to be up to date on the Republic’s latest accomplishments. RJ rattled on, “Give those recruits enough training so that they’re ready for the field as soon as they turn eighteen, make sure we don’t relent for a second against the dwarnians, no draft yet.”
“Yeah,” said Ferdy.
RJ readied their shot, the breeze absent.
“I’m going to sign up.”
RJ’s shot went wide, ricocheting off the top of the fence to who knows where. They wheeled around to face Ferdy. “What.” They placed the air pistol on the table behind them. “WHAT?”
Ferdy straightened his back, his breaths heavy. “Yeah. I’m gonna do it.”
“What!” RJ repeated. “You turned sixteen two months ago!”
“Still sixteen. Still old enough.” His light brown eyes met their own, his face half in shadow from his own cap.
“What about school?” asked RJ. They knew their brother too well to think him entirely sensible, but enlisting was a mile farther than a sudden year-long obsession with rare trading cards.
“What about school?” he challenged.
“You’re”-RJ sputtered, the world off-center, “Ferdy, you’re going to college! Where Mom and Dad went to, and-”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” he interrupted, “half the galaxy’s on fire. There probably won’t even be a Perseus Belt by the time I graduate high school.”
“Mom and Dad won’t let you go.”
“They don’t get a say.” Ferdy scratched his jaw, in between patches of facial hair where he’d been trying and failing to grow a beard for the past couple of months. “I know you, you read the whole thing. It’s entirely up to me, emergency suspension of all the usual age of majority laws.”
You could die, Ferdy, RJ didn’t say, because they weren’t a little kid. RJ stormed closer to him. “But why?”
“Because Mom and Dad have their heads buried in the sand. They keep saying that we’re in a remote corner, that we’re safe, that we’re loyal, but they haven’t been seeing the same vids I have.” Ferdy paced back and forth in front of the storehouse. “Are we supposed to pretend that staying on the main farm will keep us safe, when those aliens can show up anywhere? We should be doing everything we can to help, but they won’t listen to me.”
Softer, RJ echoed, “They never listen.”
He turned on his heel. “You’re gonna be cool about this, right?” His eyes searched RJ’s face. “I was cool about your stuff.”
“That’s not the same thing,” retorted RJ, more confused than hurt. Ferdy had always been on their side in family arguments - when RJ came out, other times, even when it seemed like he didn’t know how to look out for himself. And yes, if he was going to go fling himself into a war with space aliens FOR NO GOOD REASON, then maybe he didn’t!
“You don’t have to get it.” Ferdy sat down against the storehouse. “But I’m doing this. Just don’t tell them before I do, I gotta get some stuff squared away.”
“Fine,” grumbled RJ, sitting next to Ferdy, and hitting his knee with their fist. “Leave me and Nan behind then.”
“No, no. I’m trusting you, see?” Ferdy leaned his shoulder into theirs. “You have to look after Mom and Dad for me.” His voice quietened. “Under my bed, I’ve got a gun. A real one. Locked up, but-”
“That’s illegal, Ferdy,” RJ whispered back vehemently, “they’re all supposed to be volunteered for the war effort. Danny Ocampo got picked up last week for having a shed full of them-”
“-he gave me mine-”
“-are you trying to get us all arrested?”
“Look.” He turned to RJ, the freckles on his face a mirror of RJ’s own. “I’m not worried about the Republic. We’ve got their back and they’ve got ours. The government doesn’t come down here and raid the McCabes. They come down here, they’re gonna ask the McCabes who to raid. I’m pretty damn sure Dad’s the one who sold Ocampo out.”
“So?”
Ferdy took his cap off. “But if the dwarnians get down here...Have you seen the worst of the vids? They won’t care about human money, or that no one here’s a soldier. The things those purple bastards do, I-it’s awful, Ry.”
RJ stayed quiet. They hadn’t watched any of the war vids. They read the news, and skimmed past any photos really quickly, but they’d dodged all the vid sources after seeing that one of the San Ramos factory explosion. And now their brother was going to leave, and they felt like a coward.
“And Mom and Dad would freak out, but you’re a pretty good shot with that thing. I trust you.”
“Okay,” said RJ.
“Okay?” A smile crossed Ferdy’s face. He clasped RJ’s hand in his, their thumbs interlocking. “I do my part out there, and you take care of any dwarnians that make the mistake of crossing your sight.”
V.
The shot in the knee that took down the dwarnian was an excellent one, and McCabe was gratified when Park noted as much. They rushed forward to confront the dwarnian and get the Major General on the comms.
Pumped full of adrenaline, they tried and failed to steady their breathing. The dwarnian had fallen in the way dwarnians always did in the sims, but pulling off the shot in actual combat, against an actual armed dwarnian, thrummed a chord in McCabe’s spine that almost made them miss the Major General’s orders.
“Good work. Kill them.”
The text of the treaty and the corresponding IGR statute filled McCabe’s mind. They stammered. They stumbled. Their hands froze while the Major General spoke, the dwarnian’s eerie eyes flitted between McCabe’s gun and Park’s face, there were orders and laws in contradiction, a clear shot that would end it all and-
The dwarnian-Krejjh’s voice, on Report Nine. Strangely serious. If millions more people die because we didn’t...I will not be okay.
McCabe didn’t know if they’d be okay either. The dullness of Dad’s voice after his friend was killed in action. Sixteen-year-old Ferdy, freckled and pretending he wasn’t scared to leave. Fourteen-year-old Nan, shoulders curled in on herself after her uncle and cousins died in that Leda Cluster bombing. Checking every morning and every evening for updates on Ferdy’s latest posting, and later, for updates on Martineau too.
The whole point of the CIU’s work, their work, was to protect the IGR. Stop anything like that from ever happening again. Right?
Park swooped forward, and McCabe’s pounding heart calmed. Park had the answer. Of course he did - even Zone Z wouldn’t change that about him, and he was a veteran of the war. He was better equipped to handle the dwarnian situation, McCabe told themself. He would get the job done.
He fired two bullets into the wall, Krejjh gasping and then...very slowly winking? At Agent Park?
This could not be happening.
“Humankind, McCabe,” echoed in their thoughts long after Park had rolled off a handcart with a very-alive-not-dead-at-all dwarnian on it.
Humankind, he’d said. Not the IGR. As if they weren’t one and the same. As if-as if there could be a humankind beyond the IGR, as if a dwarnian could hate the idea of war, as if it wasn’t all absurd insurgent propaganda, and what were they doing, they needed to track down these insurgents and Park before someone pinned this on McCabe.
The dwarnian didn’t have to die, or anything. There had to be a target between the lines that McCabe could hit here, if they positioned themselves right.
That target turned out to be the chest of a low-level IGR guard. When he fell, seconds away from blowing everyone’s cover, it wasn’t guilt or relief or a dozen other emotions filling McCabe. Only the sheer force of clarity. The afterglow of any successful shot, and of this unbelievable choice too.
The only way out was through. They’re doing this.
Holy shit, they’re doing this.
IV.
“Down the center,” called Ferdy, and McCabe popped off a shot into the dwarnian’s torso. “Got them!”
“Alright,” said Ferdy, “keep pressing forward.”
When Ferdy had appeared at the Academy the Thursday before McCabe’s graduation in his service uniform, McCabe had expected most of the changes from the teenager they’d said goodbye to. Height, though still only a few inches taller than McCabe themself. The five o’clock shadow, beards forbidden for those on active duty. The neatly trimmed hair cut. Details McCabe had mostly catalogued in the past five years through their parents' incessant relating of information to each other. Ferdy had likely heard of McCabe’s latest marksmanship record.
McCabe hadn’t expected the charm.
Ferdy strode through the Academy’s hallways as if he’d been here forever, shaking hands with instructors and students and students’ family members alike at several pointless receptions, being modest when his uniform was noted. It was simple to slide into the cover Ferdy provided.
Especially when Ferdy had sweet-talked the usually impassive Sergeant Major Amaru into letting them use the sims. He’d gone on about making sure his younger sibling was really up to par, that no one was using it anyway in grad week.
Ferdy skimmed through the sim sittings. “How about this? A little bit of mine, and a little bit of yours?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Combatants - dwarnians.” He gestured to himself, typing furiously for a few seconds, and then gestured at McCabe. “Location - office building, close quarters.”
McCabe puffed up. “It’s not as if the CIU doesn’t pay attention to the Federation, not that I’m telling you anything about my very classified first assignment.”
“Last I checked, you didn’t speak any Dwarnian,” said Ferdy. “Damn good thing too.”
McCabe winced. He didn’t mean it like that. He meant that it’d be a correlatory negative, that was all. Not like they had any burning desire to learn alien languages anyway, they were satisfied with English and French enough.
Pressing forward was simple at every stage of the sim. Ferdy called targets among the virtual dwarnian enemies for McCabe, all while firing his own sim-weapon. It was nothing like the farm, McCabe thought with vicious satisfaction. It was so much better.
Dwarnian after dwarnian fell, and only once did McCabe feel the reverb in their sense-suit that signalled they got shot. Not good enough, stayed out of cover too long to pull off a tempting shot, should’ve known better.
After, Ferdy stared at the session stats with an incomprehensible look on his face. His opinion didn’t actually matter, McCabe pointed out to themself. He wasn’t in their chain of command, or even in the same government branch.
“Shit, Ry. You’re something else.” Ferdy shook his head, a grin on his face. “Wish I had you in my unit.”
Anyone else’s brother would have followed that up with some useless platitude about how they would never actually want McCabe in danger, but not Ferdy, and giddiness burst through McCabe’s chest.
“It’s not like we’re in a war anymore.” They sidled up by him to inspect the stats for themself. “They signed the treaty ages ago.”
“Plenty of people on both sides who haven’t got the message.” He snorted. “Makes sense they’d use your big brain for something else, though.”
“Ferdy, I couldn’t even find the last time a fresh graduate got posted to CIU headquarters itself,” said McCabe. “It’s-it’s a privilege.”
“It is,” said Ferdy. He swung an arm around McCabe’s shoulders, the contact so alien after these years at the Academy that they briefly froze. “Ry?”
“Yeah?”
“Sims don’t capture the real thing. When it comes down to that final moment, when it’s you or them? Don’t hesitate.”
VI.
In their first breath after Nan turned her back, RJ thought, stupid mistake.
In their next breath, they fired.
The shot was objectively perfect. A step to the side so Juniper wouldn’t be at risk if the bullet passed through. Hit the left area of the upper back, must be a lung or the heart with how silently the body dropped. No gurgling. No need for a follow-up shot. Scan the room, holster the weapon.
Nan couldn’t call Command now. Nan couldn’t do anything, ever again. Not even dragon detectives, RJ absurdly thought as their stomach churned.
The captain kept trying to talk to them, even though RJ said they were fine. The captain pressed a warm hand on RJ’s shoulder and said that word even more warmly and RJ couldn’t do anything other than snarl at her. She’s not-
Shit. They were making stupid mistakes, yelling at a superior officer, but they needed to get out of this room before they did something stupider, and they’d never been so grateful they’d mapped out the ship early on because their feet took them to the closest bathroom even as time got fuzzier.
The perfect shot stayed crisp.
The toilet bowl was metal-cool under their palms, the ship’s filtered air perfectly still around them, their shirt collar too stiff and too tight. They popped a couple of buttons. Probably too late to avoid the retching from ruining it.
They missed dirt under their nails, a cool night’s breeze, a hand on their back. It was so stupid, throwing up like this, and it was even stupider that tears were blinking out of their eyes, streaming down as they puked. RJ’s ribs felt cracked in half, every thought mirrored and doubled over itself.
Pulling the trigger had been so easy. They’d trained so it would be that easy. It was good that it was that easy. If Nan had figured out the whole truth, she’d have been the one shooting to kill. But she didn’t, said a small, traitorous (to who?) voice in RJ’s head, even after Ferdy told her, she asked me for an explanation.
And I couldn’t think of one.
“McCabe?” Violet’s voice, followed by two firm knocks on the wall.
“I-” RJ spat out a gross mixture of bile and tears and snot-”I’m here.”
“Okay,” said Violet, her steady exhale audible on this side of the wall. “We’re about to take off.”
The unspoken “Are you okay?” was obvious, and a sudden thread of anger curled in McCabe’s throat, threatening to lash out at no one and at everyone in particular. Can’t. Can’t do that. Had a job to do. Shit. Had a job to do.
“Right.” McCabe spat again. Staggered to their feet and hit the flush. They forced their voice firmer and louder. “I’ll be right outside.”
They looked awful in the mirror - bloodshot eyes, cheeks streaked, mouth stained. Didn’t matter, they reminded themself, giving their face a quick rinse. Appearances were not the relevant metric on this ship, getting the job done was.
What would Park do? They blink tightly. Shit, what would Arkady do?
Focus on the important things.
We should take her gun. We need the ammo. And we have at least a half an hour before her next check-in, because she did call in an all-clear and this was a regular patrol, nothing special.
Nothing special.
They slipped through the doorway, nodding at Violet without looking at her face. RJ needed to keep it together, because one thing was as true as it was this morning.
RJ was the only gun the Iris had.