55 pages • 1-hour read
Old Man's War
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Part 3, Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, cursing, and death.
Part 3, Chapter 13 Summary
After spending almost a week on the surface of Coral, John is saved by members of the CDF special forces. He is then taken back to Phoenix, where he recovers on a ship just outside of the atmosphere. He is told that he nearly died, having lost most of his jaw and one leg while also having his gallbladder punctured and suffering severe internal bleeding.
Harry and Jesse visit John. Where John was on the only shuttle to make it to Coral’s surface, Harry and Jesse’s shuttle was the only one to survive the mission. Over 95,000 CDF soldiers died in the attack. John is also interviewed by investigators, who emphasize the fact that someone knew exactly where the CDF ships skipped to. They suspect that someone gave the information to the Rraey fleet, but John points out that no one—even the pilots—knew exactly where the CDF ships would skip to. However, the only alternative is that the Rraey figured out how to track skipping, which everyone agrees should be impossible.
John asks Harry about the Ghost Brigade and explains that he is certain he saw his wife. After spending a couple of days investigating the special forces—which very few people know anything about—Harry is only able to gather a little information. It is speculated that the Ghost Brigade is made of “dead” humans; the CDF uses DNA from people who signed up for the army but died before their 75th birthday. The Ghost Brigade members are heavily modified, even more so than other CDF soldiers.
As Harry explains this, John sees Katherine in line getting food. Harry warns her that it isn’t really her, but someone inside her body. John ignores him, insisting that he wants to speak with her.
Part 3, Chapter 14 Summary
John introduces himself to the woman and then thanks her for saving his life. She tells him that her name is Jane Sagan. She is short with him, wanting to eat her food. However, John pushes, telling her that she was his wife and sending her a picture from his wedding day through her BrainPal. In response, she throws him across the room, severely injuring him.
That night, as John recovers in the hospital, Jane comes to him secretly. She apologizes for hurting him and tells him that she is only six years old; she was put into Katherine’s body six years ago and has no memory of consciousness before that. She asks for the wedding photo again, having deleted it to protect herself from her superiors.
The next day, Harry tells John that he has put more thought into the skipping issues. He believes that it must have something to do with tachyons, which are subatomic particles that travel backward through time. No one has ever recorded them, but they theoretically should exist. Harry speculates that tracking tachyon patterns would give someone advance notice of a skip. He admits that, if Rraeys can do this, they are far ahead of humans technologically.
John goes to a briefing with General Keegan, the commander of the CDF Second Army. He is confused about why he has been summoned since he has never met Keegan. On his way there, John hears Jane come up behind him. She walks near him but instructs him not to acknowledge her and tells him that he needs to “agree” to what Keegan asks him to do, as it will ensure he will “be safe for what’s coming up” (227). She warns him that everyone is in trouble and then quickly leaves.
At the briefing, Keegan praises John for his quick thinking and ability to survive Coral. He gives him a medal and then introduces him to Szilard, the commander of the special forces. John is told that he will board the Sparrowhawk, the special forces ship, and go back to Coral. There, he will serve as liaison between the special forces and the rest of the CDF, providing insight into what happened at Coral the last time. Keegan also promotes John to lieutenant.
John accepts the assignment but has a request: He wants Harry and Jesse to be reassigned out of combat and to the military research team. Keegan agrees. Afterward, John meets with Harry and Jesse and tells them the news. They initially resist, insisting that they need to finish serving their time in combat. However, John begs them to take the reassignment, insisting that he needs to protect his “family.”
Part 3, Chapter 15 Summary
On the Sparrowhawk, John meets Major Crick, the commanding officer. Crick warns John that the people onboard will be relatively quiet and reserved, as all special forces soldiers communicate primarily through their BrainPals. He gives John time to get acquainted with things.
As soon as John gets to his room, Jane visits him. She tells him that she wants to learn more about Katherine to understand where she herself comes from. John agrees but wants to learn about Jane in return, as this will allow him to better grasp that she is different from Katherine.
Afterward, John goes to eat. Several soldiers join him at his table and ask him questions about his life before the military. Most of the soldiers on the ship are less than three years old. John asks them why they fight for the CDF when they aren’t from Earth and are very different than humans. However, they insist that they are human and that they fight to protect each other.
At a briefing, Crick explains that the CDF is going to meet with the Consu. They believe that the Rraeys, who are well behind the CDF in technology, must have gotten the skip-tracking technology from someone, and the Consu are the obvious choice. Because John came up with the shooting technology in the fight with the Consu, he is considered responsible for killing over 8,000 Consu soldiers. As a result, Crick is hopeful that the Consu will allow a delegation led by John to speak with them; they respect those who are able to defeat them. Jane explains that the Consu have a ritual where they allow five individual hand-to-hand fights; for each win, the CDF can ask a question of the Consu.
Over the next two days, as the forces prepare to leave, Jane repeatedly visits John and asks him to tell her about Katherine. John talks about important times throughout their lives, like when they first met and when he realized he was in love with her.
Part 3, Chapters 13-15 Analysis
After John’s rebirth, he begins to pursue the personal connection he lacks in his CDF life. First, he uses his influence within the CDF to save his last two remaining friends, Harry and Jesse. Their initial resistance is rooted in something that they share with John: their dedication to the war that they have become embroiled in. However, they acquiesce, allowing John to secure his last two friendships as everyone around him whom he knows dies. Then, he begins to develop a personal relationship with Jane. While their relationship is at this point only platonic, the nights that they spend talking allow John to begin to rebuild his humanity.
Jane herself is a reflection of the value of love and human connection. While she shares the body of John’s wife, she has no recollection of John or Katherine. Regardless, she and John form an immediate connection, providing them both with something that they lack: the emotional feeling of attachment to another human. John’s immediate connection to her reflects his pragmatic personality, which has been on display throughout the novel. In the novel’s opening, he left his wife’s grave without remorse, recognizing that she was not her body. Then, he admitted to his fellow soldiers that what he missed most about life on Earth was marriage—not necessarily to one specific person, but the bond and human connection. Now, he acknowledges that Jane is not his wife but insists that he wants to learn who Jane is, telling her, “You have to tell me about you” (287).
In addition, Jane and the rest of the Ghost Brigade develop the themes of The Duality of Technological Advancement and Colonization and the Conflict Between Self and Other. While John’s body has been modified, he still retains his human memories and knows what life was like on Earth. The Ghost Brigade soldiers, on the other hand, not only possess greater physical capabilities but also were created from nothing, with many of their consciousnesses being fewer than five years old. This raises questions about how much human physiology and consciousness can be altered while remaining recognizably human, and yet the Ghost Brigade is home to the most valued soldiers in the CDF—ones who commit their lives to the war from birth despite never having experienced “normal” human life. These complexities raise questions about the idea of colonization by blurring the line between “human” and “Other.”
While the novel’s inciting incident is John’s enlistment in the CDF, much of the text lacks a traditional novelistic structure. He joins the military and learns of the central conflict between the CDF and other species, but much of what follows serves as exposition rather than developing a central plot or rising action. However, in the final part of the text, Scalzi introduces the conflict that sets up the novel’s climax: the existence of a skip drive tracker that will destroy the CDF’s army if the CDF does not destroy or replicate it. The skip drive tracker is a MacGuffin, a plot device used to drive the action and motivate the characters that lacks any clear origin or significance. This section sees the characters commit their entire focus toward the tracker, potentially sacrificing the entire Ghost Brigade and much of their army to try to destroy it. In this way, Scalzi begins to build toward the climax, presenting a clear rising action as the Ghost Brigade prepares for the showdown on Coral. Suspense and tension thus build as John and the others ready themselves to risk their lives to defeat the Rraey and capture the tracker.
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