"James Dark Moon, by order of theJudge Advocate General...  of the Army of the United States of America...  you have been sentenced to death...  for the murder of Lieutenant General Louise Elizabeth Smith." "Make a statement at this time." "I got something to say...|" "But I guess no one cares to hear it." "You're entitled to a statement." "Wish I could have added to this life..." " instead of taking away." "" "But a man is what he is." "That's it." "" "  Who's at my hatch?" "Officer on watch, sir." "Enter." "  " "Sir, we have an unidentified ISSAPC approaching." "We have challenged." " And?" " The response was a request... to present you with a security password:" ""Changing Woman. "" "Clear them." "Place the Saratoga on security alert." "All personnel, all decks... are confined to quarters until further notice." "Yes, sir." " " "A man is what he is." "We thought we were alone." "We believed the universe was ours." "Until one night in 2063, on an Earth colony 16 light- years away...  they struck." "And now we are at war." "My name is Lieutenant Colonel T. C. McQueen." "I'm an InVitro, a race of artificially gestated humans." "I command a Marine Corps squadron" " The 58th." "They call us the Wild Cards." "We fight when called- in space, on land and at sea." "To lose this war means more than defeat." "To surrender is to never go home." "All of us must rise to the call above and beyond." " 0530?" " They didn't sound reveille." "General Quarters." "You know, this could be it." "I heard this is how Roundhammer would start." "No." "No, I heard it would be weeks before D-Day 2." "Months, maybe." "I heard it's been pushed up." "It's any day now." "Man, we all know it's gonna happen." "Just not where and when." "They should just come out and tell us." "Maybe they're not saying anything because Roundhammer's b. s." "Disinformation to psych the Chigs..." " or us, somehow." " No." "There's too much weirdness going on for it not to be real." "The main weirdness goin' on here is all these rumors." "It's just gossip." "Boredom killers." "If it happens, it'll happen." "When it happens, it'll happen." "~~~~" "Looks like today's gonna be the same old routine." "  Where is everybody?" " What's the deal here?" "Mission briefing said wheels up in ten mikes." "I don't even see a flight crew." "Flight deck 16, right?" "Maybe the war's over, and they forgot to tell us." "No such luck." "I hear people working in there." "Let's check what's goin' on through the O-room." "Doesn't look like that's gonna happen." "What are you people doin' standing around?" "I want you out there bombing Chigs... before they've had their morning coffee and doughnuts." "Don't tell it to us" " Sir." "Someone's locked us out." " Security lockdown?" " You don't know what's goin' on, sir?" "No, Wang, I don't." "Must have slipped the commander-in-chief's mind when we teed off this morning." "Vansen heard crews working on our Hammers in there." "Sir,ourHammersunderwent thorough maintenance inspection..." " after the last mission." "" "If they had found anything,  we would have been told." "Itdoesn'tmakesense." "Why give us orders we can't carry out?" "Maybeit'sjust a hangar door malfunction." "What do we do now, sir?" "The mission's been scrubbed.|" " Every squadron?" " Just ours." " Why would they do that to us?" " It's not up to us to ask why." "Now get back to your quarters." "Await further orders." "" " Whoa!" "Son, I don't know if you'll understand what I'm about to say." "This is Rosilyn." "You damage her, you damage me." "And I will make you walk all 12. 6 light years back to Fat Anthony's Guitar Parlor... in Shreveport, Louisiana to repair a single nick." "We wouldn't want that, now, because I'd have to make him... walk all the way to Country Dick's Guitar Shop in Austin, Texas." "We're all secured here, sir!" "Country Dick's!" "Whoo, well, baby." "Oh, man." "It's been a long time!" "That night in Galveston." "We were bombed." "I drove those women away singin' "The Ballad of Ira Hayes. "" "You would have driven anybody away, after six times in a row." "Speakin' of which:" "I was drivin' through Arizona a few years ago." "I was with my people, the Navajo, and..." "I bought this off a guy on the Pima reservation." "Claims it's an old letter signed by Ira Hayes, that he wrote at IwoJima." "I doubt if it is, but I thought about you, and" "Hell, I'd like to think it is." "I've been wondering about Hayes a lot." "First Pima Indian to become a Marine paratrooper." "Helped raise the flag at IwoJima." "Became a hero for a country that... had massacred Native Americans." "They say he drowned in a mud puddle." "Drunk." "Did he ever feel he had been used?" "That he'd done the right thing?" "Would he have done it the same way again, if he had a chance?" "Too bad the dead don't get a chance to redeem themselves." "Is there something that's troubling you because of your new appointment?" "You are now the highest-ranking Native American officer in the world." "Although, it's hard for me to imagine you in charge of anything... called "intelligence. "" "~~" "The enemy seems to know our every move in preparation for Roundhammer." "We don't know if it's surveillance... or if there is a traitor amongst us." "Therefore, our mission here- ultra-compartmentalized- will alter that situation." "Once it's executed, Operation Roundhammer is a go." "How much can you tell an old friend?" "I can only tell you the details of the mission." "Just four people in the world know the entire plan." "First thing I can tell you, Glen... is I will use one of the Saratoga squadrons." " The 58th." " ~~~~" "What I can tell you is... the dead will redeem themselves." "I don't know." "Could we have flown through some new enemy weapons fire... and the techies are analyzing the residue on our planes?" "Seems more likely that there's a defective part in the Hammerhead." "Maybe they're just checking it out secretly." "Then why would they let all the other Hammerheads fly today?" "Why ground just us?" "Now, don't look when I say this... but the woman walking into the bar?" "The" "I saw her going out on the flight deck when we were locked out." "Coop?" "Go pump her." " Say what now?" "" "For information." "Go on.|" "Yeah." "G. I. Geequed." "Go find out what's goin'on." "  Go." " All right." "Evenin'." "Been aboard the Saratoga long?" "Long enough to want to leave, not long enough to have completed my assignment." " Which is?" "" " I'm sorry." "My name's" " Cooper Hawkes, Lieutenant." "948-98-01446." "Born at the invitro facility, Philadelphia." "Sentenced to the Marine Corps for kicking the crap out of some punks... who were really trying to hang you." "Wild Card call name, "Jack of Spades. "" "An outstanding fighter pilot, awarded the Montgomery Star for the Battle of the Belt." "Recently released from detoxification for an addiction to green meanies." "Well" " It was nice to meet you." " We'll talk again." " You get anything?" " The creeps." "Couldn't have been that big a deal, if they got rid of Security." "Well, everything looks all right." "Okay." "Let me up." "Let me up." "Okay." "They put this in there, and I got a feeling that they didn't want us to know about it." "" "  All right. !" "Listen up. !" "Your orders are as follows:" "You're to fly in formation... five M. S. K. 's away from the Saratoga into the Doris region." "Doris?" "There's nothin' going' on down there." "You will be joined by an APC... on an intercepting course." "You will then deploy into a modified vic,  protecting the APC." "A squadron escort through a safe area, sir?" "And to where?" "I don't know." "You know as much as I do." "The orders." "That's all you need to know." "Look alive." "We're five M. S. K. 's out." "Approaching rendezvous." "" " Bogey, 3:00." "I. F. F." "Bogey I. D. confirmed." "APC on intercept." "Let's give him a holler." "Maybe they can tell us what this mission's all about." " Roger that." "" "This is Wild Cards to APC." "Request coordinates for escort." "This is Wild Cards to APC." "Please respond." "Come on, rude boy." "Start talkin'." "No response." "He's flying like he doesn't see us." "Somebody better do something, before we get sideswiped." "Alter angle 90 degrees." "We'll jump on this guy from above." "Hack!" "I just tried all the frequencies." "No response." "This guy is D. U. I. !" "He is stoned or dead." "He almost took me out." "APC, this is Wild Cards." "What the hell is your problem?" "Respond on Tac One." "Now!" "I got three bogeys straight ahead." "They're flying in classic Chig formation." " Confirm." "Let's heat 'em up." " Wait a mike." "I. F. F. confirms targeting drones 12:00." "I don't get it." "What, we came all the way out here for target practice?" "He scored a bull's-eye." "He sure went hot in a hurry." "That's not sayin' much, against drones." "I'm holdin' off judgment till he takes on the real thing." "Whoa, it's got me locked!" "I'm taking hits!" " Can't juke him!" " Permission to retaliate?" "Granted." "Target that engine and take him out." "Eat that!" " Return to home plate." " We're just gonna leave whoever's in there..." " to drift in space?" "  Note the coordinates for retrieval." "Relay it to the Saratoga." "58, you're cleared in on deck four." "Be advised, your flight recorders will be confiscated." "You were involved in a blue fire incident." "This won't be good." " They fired on us." " Just keep quiet until you get attorneys." "Captain Vansen." "You're to follow me directly to the interrogation room." "Captain!" "Each of them pulled the A. V. N. Modules from their cockpits." " It would have been a success otherwise." " You gonna question her?" "She put foreign objects in our controls." "Our controls. !" " Vansen!" " It is every pilot's right... to know the condition of her craft." "You kept that right from us." "Without knowing the mission objectives... we could not assume that we were not being placed in danger." "Sir, we are not asking to be told information that is not meant for us to know." "We are not afraid ofbeing placed in jeopardy." "But we want to know when we're being placed in it." "Sir." "We can't trust you if you don't trust us." "The APC locked on us." "Your insubordinate actions made you a foe for the APC." "Oh, to hell with that." "The pilots fired on us." "Let's talk to them." "There were no pilots." "Cancel interrogations." "The 58th's to report to the orientation room." "Immediately." "The following mission...  is classified ultra- compartmentalized." "You are not to discuss it amongst yourselves." "You are not to question it." "You are not to theorize, nor pose hypotheticals." "If any of you feels incapable of doing so... please speak up now so that you may be dismissed... with no consequences whatsoever to your record." "Your assignment is as escort... to an Inter-Solar System Armored Personnel Carrier... to the planet Eris." "There are two major obstacles before you reach the target planet." "First,  enemy- occupied territory." "Defined by the Walden line." "And second, an asteroid belt...  that trails the planet Helios." "You will successfully negotiate these obstacles... fly to the Chig- held planet Eris...  and then, no doubt, encounter further enemy activity." "At which time... you will allow the ISSAPC to become vulnerable... and you will allow it to be shot down." "Afterwards, you will demonstrate behavior...  which could be interpreted as squadron panic." "Then, turn tail and run like hell." "Sir, are you asking us to fail?" "Failure..." "will be our greatest success." "The APC will be piloted via telepresence...  by Colonel Klingman, here aboard the Saratoga." "This device, which you removed from your cockpits... interlinks the position and velocity of your Hammerheads... to the computers operating the telepresence." "So that's what today was all about." "There won't be anybody on board the APC." "There'll be passengers on the craft." "And we're to allow them to be killed?" "They'll never know what hit 'em." "That's all I can say about the objectives." "Dismissed!" "We're not supposed to talk about it." "They want us to escort this thing through two Chig fighter wings..." " only to let it get shot down?" " They're saying... anyone on the APC is expendable." "And what if they're not the only ones?" "Hmm?" "I've been thinkin'." "The general said...  the passengers would never feel a thing." ""Passengers. " To me, that says they're not human." "I'm thinkin' they could be droppin' animals or something on to the planet." "What, like, some trained flying monkeys?" "No, I mean" " You know, something that might freak 'em out a little." "Caesar used elephants when they attacked the Britons... because they had never seen one before." "They retreated, horrified." "More like they'd pump animals full of some infectious disease the Chigs can't fight." "We're not supposed to discuss it." "You were the one who was analyzing all the rumors." "And you were the one telling everyone to ignore the rumors." "Yeah, well I think this goes beyond just rumors." " What turned you around?" " He told us the mission." "I still think they're not telling us enough of what we're getting into." " What could they be hiding?" " Look. !" "I like to know the whole story, but there's a reason... that we're not supposed to know now- we said it to his face." "We couldn't trust the general ifhe didn't trust us." "He told us the mission." "All we can do is believe his word." "Captain?" "Message from General Radford." "Think she knows something we don't?" "Coop." "Where's the fire?" "Maybe he knows something we don't know." "They're dead, aren't they?" "The 58?" "Don't tell me you've succumbed to those bizarre rumors." "In World War II, prior to D-Day... the British placed false information about the European invasion... on the body of a man who just died of pneumonia." "They dressed him as a high- ranking officer, and put him in the English Channel." "Via submarine." "The Germans discovered the body, and re-deployed several Panzer divisions... away from the area." "It was a crucial deception that aided the Allied victory." "The passengers in the APC are dead." "If I knew, I couldn't confirm." "While looking into the Second World War..." "I found something else." "Operation "Naye'i. "" "Naye'i is a Navajo word for "alien gods. "" "During the war... we used Native Americans as radio operators." "Navajo was the only native language the enemy couldn't crack." "I assume any disinformation regarding the location of Operation Roundhammer... would be written in code, to make it appear to the enemy to be top secret information." "We are not at liberty to discuss this." "I have no problem with the mission- if that's what it is." "But there is something that bothers me, Commodore." "For disinformation to be effective... we would want the Chigs to crack the code." "Why would the code be written in a language... that even other people on Earth couldn't crack?" "Unless we knew the enemy was familiar with the language." "Naye'i." "Alien gods." " Colonel." " Lieutenant." "I was wondering if you could answer a few questions..." " about a-all this." "" "Telepresence has been around for quite some time." "The Russians first used it in 1998 to explore Mars." "Telepresence is an interactive computer graphics system...  which provides the operator with the illusion... ofbeing immersed in a simulated environment." "My question isn't really about the system." " It's about you." " You got a problem with me?" " Yeah." " Sit down." "You won't be there." "I mean, you yourself?" "You seem okay to me." "You seem like you know what you're doin' with this stuff." "But a machine" " All this?" "It can't feel what we do out there." "" " When we're under enemy attack... and it just becomes one big hairy fur ball... and you don't know up from down, and your heart's pounding... 'cause you're taking enemy fire from your 6:00 and 12:00... and you barely have time to think for yourself" "somehow we all just know." "We feel where each other are." "And I'm there for them, and they're there for me." " You're talking about situational awareness." " Yeah!" "And I don't see how you can have it... sitting in a closet on the Saratoga." "Now, I'm not tryin' to rag on you... but have you ever had your wingman- a good buddy- blown out of the sky... then have to drive on while g-forces are tearing you out of your seat?" "I'm an engineer, Lieutenant." "And then puke all over yourself when you came out of the roll?" " Yes, but not in an airplane." " Have you ever been shot at?" "No." "I've never been in a dogfight." "But why must I have taken a life in order for you to trust me?" "This machine" " These wires- will save millions oflives." "This plan" " My idea- is my part to bring everyone home soon." "Safe." "And I would think you could believe in... and trust someone... who's working to be able to spend a night with you back home... rather than going out...  to look up your name on some war memorial wall." "I believe in my plan." "I believe in myself." "It's what a machine can't feel." "That you and me can." "That scares me." "In more ways than one." "Sir." "Captain Vansen reporting as ordered, sir." "As you were, Captain." "That comment you made to me about trust... bordered on insubordination." " Sir, the Captain apologizes for any" " As a Lieutenant General..." "I made a similar challenge to the supreme commander." "I spent a year at Fort Grissom, on the dark side of the moon." "I suppose trust can only be gained by understanding someone." " Do you agree?" " Yes, sir." " Absolutely, sir." " I can't understand too many people." "But people who know- truly know... what they are- stand by it, and live by it- are so rare." "They are the ones that go down in history." "In part because you will lead Operation Naye'i...  but mainly because I respect your challenge to me, I feel... you're entitled to a bit more information about the mission tomorrow morning." " It doesn't leave this room." " Yes, sir." "I need to tell another human about my understanding of one of those... who will go down in history." "And never know it." "He was born on the night of a lunar eclipse." "In a Navajo reservation in southern Utah." "They called him Jimmie Dark Moon." "Jimmie spent his whole life in trouble." "I met him in jail, when he stole something from my sister's home." "I saw him in the same cell... where I sat when I was young." "For throwing rocks in library windows." "A recruiter came in and convinced me I was wasting my life... so I joined up." "I wanted to pay back that man and giveJimmie the same break." "I'll never forget the look on his face:" "Sad resignation." "An ancient wisdom to a teenage boy." "He spent the whole- the whole time- trying to convince me it was useless." "That some people are born mean." "And he was one of them." "Two years after he was in the corps...  he was assigned to a lieutenant general... who thought it was cute to call him Tonto." "Some medals were stolen out ofher office...  and without any hard evidence, she accused Jimmie." "One night, he went to her home to state his case." "No one will ever know what happened between them." "I guess his life just caught up with him." "He killed her." "Last week, he was executed for that murder." "I see you, Captain, as what I became... and Jimmie is what I could have become, but I will not surrender to that idea." "Jimmie believed he was a villain." "I believe he had it inside him to be a hero." "And tomorrow morning, he's gonna prove it." ""Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." ""I will fear no evil:" "For thou art with me;" ""thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." ""Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:" ""Thou anointest my head with oil,  my cup runneth over." ""Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:" ""And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." ""May the Lord bless you and keep you." "In the name of the Father, and of the Son,  and of the Holy Ghost." "Amen. '"" "Stand by for shuttle launch." "Stand by for shuttle launch." "We are..." "locked." "58, you are looking good." "Roger that, Boss Ross." "Proceeding on designated course." "All we can do now is wait.|" "Communiqué from Intelligence, sir." "Enemy squadrons now entering the Helios system." "Okay, Cards." "It's gonna be rough." "Let's do what we gotta do and drive on." "APCisago." "We have you centered and holding." "WildCards,lookalive." "We're in the hot zone." "Check right." "Chig squadron at 3:00." "Bandits at 5:00." "Look alive." "Splash one." "Nathan, 'Phousse." "Check my 6:00." "I'm on it." "Come on, bad boy." " Klingman, check your 6:00." " Behind you." "I see him." "" "  Boo- ya. !" " Greased him good, Colonel." " Juke, Shane." "Juke." "Enemyissuperior." "Let's lose him in the asteroid field." "  Whoa, that was close." "  Look alive." "It's getting thick." "'Phousse, on your 3:00. !" "On your 3:00. !" "They're still with us." "  Look out, Vansen." "  Need help." "They're locked onto me." "Hoo-rah!" "Out of the yard." "Hoo-yah!" "Hold it steady." "Steady." "Three degrees right and steady." "You're doing great, Colonel." "Juke right." "Juke right. !" " I got trouble." " Hang on." "We're out of the asteroid field." "Eris is just ahead." "Enemy squadron, 12:00 high." "Roger that." "The interlocking system between the APC and the Hammerheads is out." "Klingman. !" "This is Hawkes." "I'll talk you through." " Bandits on your 5:00!" " Behind you to the right." " Jink left!" "Fire at 2:00!" " Ahead right." "All right, this is it." "Let's go, Olivier." "We need to let 'em get an open shot." "Queen of Hearts, go 10:00 high." "Wild Cards!" "We are outnumbered." "APC down." "Repeat!" "APC is mayday." "Going down on planet." "Abort mission. !" "Abort. !" "Abort. !" "Colonel Klingman?" "Colonel?" "58, it is too soon to tell if our mission has been a success." "The bodies of those we sent on this mission... cannot be recovered for a burial at space." "However, their sacrifice will not go unrecognized." "On behalf ofjames Dark Moon, Captain Vansen will accept the Montgomery Star." "Awarded posthumously." "Now in the sky, he thought..." "I will create all around her." "The stars will be all over the sky." "In the past, they all had names, also direction." "So that nothing would go wrong wherever you were on this Earth." "It is still the same way that he made it." "" " Now, we will set our minds." "Yes, we will give thanks for all the stars in the sky." "This is the way it should be in our minds." "Watch your hands." "Watch your hands."