Starfist - Kingdom's Swords Part 4

As they filed out of the shuttle, the nineteen pa.s.sengers were greeted warmly by a young woman in a jumpsuit.

"I'm Jennifer Lenfen, ladies and gentlemen. I'm the systems engineer on the Cambria Cambria , with double duty as purser when we have pa.s.sengers." She smiled. She was wearing a loose-fitting jumpsuit, the standard work clothes for the ship's crew. The suit did not reveal much of what was inside, but her smile was warm and genuine and it was obvious she was looking forward to dealing with the pa.s.sengers on this voyage. "Your baggage will be delivered to you once your stateroom a.s.signments have been made. So if , with double duty as purser when we have pa.s.sengers." She smiled. She was wearing a loose-fitting jumpsuit, the standard work clothes for the ship's crew. The suit did not reveal much of what was inside, but her smile was warm and genuine and it was obvious she was looking forward to dealing with the pa.s.sengers on this voyage. "Your baggage will be delivered to you once your stateroom a.s.signments have been made. So if 49 49 you will follow me, I'll lead you to the pa.s.sengers' galley. The captain will talk to you once we're settled in there."

"What is there to do on this scow, Miss Renfen?" one of the diplomats asked. He was a young man with a wolfish look about him.

"Lenfen, sir," Jennifer corrected him, not missing a beat or losing her smile. "You'll have a full a.s.sortment of recreational activities available while on board. Also, when a crew member is available, tours of the ship can be-"

"You're on, honey!" the wolfish young man crowed.

"Tours of the ship can be arranged." She looked straight at the wolfish young man. "Individually or in small groups..."

"Individually, Miss Renfen, that's for me!" the young man interjected.

"...for a gratuity."

"Oh, honey, do I have a 'gratuity' for you!" the young man howled. His companions laughed with him.

"James," Redface said, laughing himself but apparently thinking it wise to rein in his protege. Miss Lenfen's face flushed and she stumbled over her words, surprised and shocked at the young man's blatant suggestiveness.

"What is your name, sir?" Conorado asked, stepping up to the young diplomat.

"James Palmita," he answered, surprised and taken off guard. He recovered quickly, though, and sneered, "And who in the h.e.l.l are you, soldier boy?" Conorado thrust a rigid forefinger into the young man's chest. "James, shut up." Lewis Conorado had just carved out his niche for the rest of the voyage.

The pa.s.sengers' galley, which was more a restaurant than a dining hall, was built to accommodate fifty diners at a seating. Miss Lenfen led the party to a large table in the center of the galley and asked everyone to take a seat. Servos rolled out and began taking orders, much to the delight of the new arrivals. Conorado ordered a liter of Reindeer ale and was delighted when it was delivered ice cold. He glanced at the three 'Finnis, raised his gla.s.s in their direction before he drank. The diplomats ordered a wild variety of mixed drinks and aperitifs, things with a twist of that, three jiggers of this, shaken and mixed just so, but once everyone had been served, the atmosphere relaxed considerably. Conorado found himself sitting next to a mousy little woman who had not joined much in the antics of her companions.

He wiped the suds off his upper lip and turned to the woman. "My name is Lew Conorado," he said, offering her his hand.

"Marchia Golden," she answered, but did not take Conorado's hand. 50 50 "Where you headed? Back on Earth, I mean? Home leave?" He kept his hand out for a moment and then awkwardly withdrew it.

Marchia Golden did not reply at once, as if considering whether she should bother to answer the question. "Back to headquarters. For rea.s.signment."

"Well, Marchia, what do you do? I think it's more than obvious what I do." He laughed.

"I'm an administrative a.s.sistant, if you must know." Conorado cleared his throat. "Well, it's a long voyage, ma'am, and-" But Marchia Golden had turned abruptly to one of her coworkers and began a conversation with him. Wow! Conorado thought. Talk about the social snub! He shrugged and turned to the man on his left, but the man was engaged in a deep monologue with another woman diplomat, so he gave up, moved to the other side of the table and took a seat with the 'Finnis.

A crewman in a dirty jumpsuit walked up to the table and sat down. He was middle-aged, with several days' growth of whiskers, and the stub of a cigar jutting out of one side of his mouth. "I'm the captain," he announced to no one in particular as he ordered a beer from a servo. The table fell silent. This was their captain?

"How do you do, Captain," Redface replied. "I'm Jamison Franks III, second undersecretary of the Confederation emba.s.sy on Thorsfinni's World, and these people here are members of the Diplomatic Service." He introduced the IG team. "And we three," he indicated himself, Palmita, and Ms. Golden, "are returning to Earth on rea.s.signment. I have the rank of amba.s.sador."

"Hi," the captain said to the people around him. "My name is Hank Tuit. Welcome to the Cambria Cambria ." He shifted his cigar carefully and took a long drink of his beer. Suds formed a white mustache on his upper lip, which he wiped away carelessly with his hand. He belched. "Hey!" Tuit announced suddenly, looking down the table. "We have a Marine with us! How're you doing, Captain? You must be with 34th FIST?" ." He shifted his cigar carefully and took a long drink of his beer. Suds formed a white mustache on his upper lip, which he wiped away carelessly with his hand. He belched. "Hey!" Tuit announced suddenly, looking down the table. "We have a Marine with us! How're you doing, Captain? You must be with 34th FIST?"

"Yessir," Conorado answered, rising from his seat. Tuit waved him back down. "None of that military protocol on this ship, Captain! I had enough of that the forty years I was an officer in the Confederation Navy. I promised myself," he addressed the whole table now, "that when I retired I wouldn't have any protocols anymore, and I don't. When you get back to 34th FIST, Captain, say h.e.l.lo to Gunnery Sergeant Ba.s.s for me, would you?"

"You-You know Charlie Ba.s.s?" Captain Tuit smiled and took another long swig from his beer.

"Ah, Captain," Franks said, "we'd like to see our staterooms, and may I ask, will anyone be dining with you at your table tonight?"

"Huh? 'Table'? Oh, yeah. No, no. No captain's table on this vessel. I live on the bridge, Mr. Amba.s.sador. I eat there, I sleep there, I even s.h.i.t there. No, you won't see much of me on this voyage. Unless one of you dies, then I've got to make a report. Otherwise you're on your own.

"Jenny." He turned to Miss Lenfen. "Orient these folks on the pa.s.senger compartment and get them into staterooms. Folks, you're on your own now. Anything you need the rest of this voyage, ask Jenny. You are not permitted outside the pa.s.senger compartment unless you're accompanied by a member of my crew. Captain," he turned to Conorado, "join me on the bridge for coffee after Jenny gets you squared 51 51 away." Carrying his beer with him, Captain Tuit got up to leave, turned his back on his pa.s.sengers and walked away.

Amba.s.sador Franks stared at his departing back. "Strange old bird," he muttered.

"Best thing the navy ever did was get rid of that old fart," Palmita whispered in a voice loud enough that Tuit and everybody else at the table could hear him, but Tuit ignored the comment and continued out of the dining hall without a backward glance.

Siluria was one of many worlds in Human s.p.a.ce that was not worth colonizing, but its rich ores made it worth exploiting, so two industrial bases had been established there eighty years before to mine the planet's natural resources. The companies that had invested in the enterprise were not interested in wasting any money preserving Siluria's environment. They strip-mined its outer crust and bored dozens of kilometers under its surface to extract priceless cargoes that were then shipped to consumers all over Human s.p.a.ce. About ten thousand men and women labored in the mines of Siluria. The pay was excellent and many of them eagerly renewed their contracts when they expired. Five who were not going to renew sat in a tiny cabin perched on the rim of a vast pit that was the remnant of a strip mine that had played out years before. The occupants had to shout to make themselves heard above the howl of the frigid wind that buffeted the cabin. That was just what they wanted because their business this night was very private. A schematic of the SS Cambria SS Cambria lay spread before them on the table. "Brothers," their leader was saying, lay spread before them on the table. "Brothers," their leader was saying, "in three weeks time we strike at last for the Lord." The others muttered "Amen!" to his words. The one speaking was thin with a dark beard and the watery eyes of a fanatic. The four others about the table could have been his brothers, judging by their looks, but they were not related. "You all know what you are to do once we're aboard. We have finished practicing. Each has his duty and each knows just what to do. Until the day of boarding we will spend our free time in prayer and meditation. We must prepare ourselves for paradise." Tears stood out in his eyes as he spoke.

"Amen," the others replied.

"The Unbelievers are sending military forces to our beloved home!" the speaker shouted, as much out of rage as to be heard above the wind. "The leaders of our community have transgressed! They have fallen into the ways of the sinful!"

"We shall show them the wrath of our G.o.d!" one of the others shouted. The leader nodded. "They must be given a Sign. They must be shown the Way! The Lord G.o.d has spoken to me, brothers! When we are done, we shall be called home to Him!"

"G.o.d be praised!" the others shouted. One of the men put a small metal container on the table. "The Lord G.o.d has favored me with the knowledge of this Secret," he said as he slid the case into the center of the table. The leader fell silent at the sight of the case but his eyes gleamed. He ran his shaking hands reverently over the surface of the metal. His hands shook not out of fright but with ecstasy. In a voice turned hoa.r.s.e with emotion he said, "Here-inside this Ark-is the power and the spirit of the universe. Let us pray." 52 52 The five men bowed their heads in silent prayer. The metal case, nothing more than the ordinary tool kit of a mining engineer, gleamed softly in the dull light. It contained a thermonuclear bomb.

CHAPTER NINE.

A military base is a dull and cold place to be when the troops are away. For men who don't have their families with them on hardship tours, holidays are an especially bad time too, and Thorsfinni's World was a hardship tour in spades. The single men and those separated from wives and children inevitably turn their thoughts to home. The longer a man stays in the Corps, the more he gets used to family separations and learns that the hardship can be endured with other men in a similar situation, in the spirit of camaraderie that always buoys the spirits of military men far from home. No combat unit ever deploys at full strength. Men are always on temporary additional duty, ineligible because of physical profiles, because they're off at schools, exempt because of serious family problems, and so on. And when troops deploy, it's a living h.e.l.l for the men who have to stay behind. No Marine worth his salt wants to remain in garrison when his unit is out on a combat operation somewhere. Those who are left behind often feel they've been singled out because there's something wrong with them. In the case of 34th FIST, it was true. Colonel Ramadan was being left behind because of his b.u.m leg, and a few other men were recovering from various injuries or suffering from permanent disabilities-men whom the "quarantine" prevented from being discharged and returned home. But far worse was to be the dependent of a man sent on deployment. All too often when that happened a family's life in the Corps was abruptly ended by a knock on the door and a visit from the chaplain with news of the worst kind. And when tragedy did not intervene, the worry, the loneliness and boredom of the waiting, was too much for some, and weary men returning from some G.o.dforsaken h.e.l.lhole returned home to find their families gone. There was an adage among Marine Corps wives: "We're not in the Service anymore." It was a sharp and cynical statement and it cut in different ways. Marta Conorado was no stranger to any of this. All the many years of waiting for news of her husband's fate and living without him had hardened her outwardly, but now she had grown weary of life in the Corps. When her children were small, she had the diversion of taking care of them, holding the family together against their father's return. And when he did come home-oh, joy beyond measure! All the anger and pain she felt at their enforced separations would vanish instantly in his arms. Now, during the first few weeks after her husband's departure, Marta wavered between feeling guilty at what she had said the night he left and feeling righteous anger that she was once more being left in the lurch. She realized that she did not know for sure if she really meant to leave her husband, but that's what she'd said, and there was no way to take the words back; he had left with them ringing in his ears. She comforted herself with the thought that at least he'd be in no danger on that trip, with his company again deployed to some G.o.dforsaken h.e.l.lhole. What could a stupid court-martial do to a man like Lewis Conorado? Maybe, she thought, if the court-martial went against him, he'd at last see the light and take the offer her father had made many times in the past. Herbius Carmody ran a very successful import-export business. More than once, he had offered Conorado a top position in his firm with the promise of a salary that would make his Marine Corps pay look like peanuts. The old man was serious. Managerial and leadership talent such as Conorado had developed as a Marine officer was hard to come by. But Conorado had turned him down, politely but flatly, and Marta had always supported him. Her father could never understand it. Marta had always thought she did, but she wasn't so sure anymore. 53 53 While Camp Ellis was a ghost town, Mainside, the Confederation Navy base on Thorsfinni's World, thrived with activity. Its clubs and messes were full every night, and during the day the port operation and the naval command headquarters hummed with the life of a base operating at full capacity. The sidewalks at Mainside seemed to vibrate with the sharp salutes of the officers and men going about their duties. When ships of the line came into orbit for a visit, their shuttles discharged eager crewmen anxious to spend money on liberty in New Oslo-the hospitality of the 'Finnis was renowned throughout the Fleet-or even in the enlisted clubs at the base. While their children were in school, the navy wives at Mainside enjoyed a whirlwind of social events, from card games to shopping sprees in New Oslo. Marta Conorado did not partic.i.p.ate in any of that. After obtaining her master's in education and eventually the princ.i.p.alship of a high school off-world, she had met Lew. He'd been on recruiting duty then, but had come to her school not to recruit, but as a guest lecturer in a government seminar. A local politician had also been a member of the discussion panel, and when he began to openly deride the Marine Corps before the senior cla.s.s, claiming that professional military people were no better than prost.i.tutes, Conorado had shut him down with the simple statement: "Sir, if that is so, next time the enemy comes knocking at your gates, call for a prost.i.tute." Lew had invited her to dinner that night, and she accepted. Since then, as time and circ.u.mstances permitted, she had taught in a variety of school systems part-time, but her main focus in life had become her husband and their children.

Yet Marta Conorado was a woman with a high degree of intelligence and lots of good, old-fashioned horse sense. There was little she couldn't figure out on her own. Over the years, for instance, she had taught herself how to repair just about any type of small machine. She had to learn because on Lew's pay they could not easily afford new applicances or the bills required to fix old ones when they broke down. So Marta did not fit in with the coterie of navy wives who spent their time gossiping, shopping, and having affairs while their men were away. Once, years before, while having lunch with some Marine wives, one of them had commented that her husband would refuse to shave when he was off duty for any length of time. "He tells me, 'I'm off duty and so is my face,'" she said, to the laughter of the other women around the table.

"Well, that's typical of the male of the species," another remarked. "But for a woman, her face is like an officer, it's never off duty! Isn't that so, Marta?"

"Well," Marta answered, "I guess so, but for me, I really don't have to show anyone anything, you know? I'm not in 'show' business." But despite the fact that Marta Conorado never expended much effort showing the world her face, she was still a handsome woman, even in her fifties. Slim and athletic, not a streak of gray in her auburn hair, she was a smart, confident, healthy woman who didn't need much in the way of beauty aids. And now, over all her thoughts, hung the chilling knowledge that Lewis had imparted to her about the Skinks and what happened on Society 437. The Marines had dealt with them on that occasion, and she had no doubt they would again, but with the FIST off elsewhere, Marta realized just how vulnerable everyone on the fringes of Human s.p.a.ce really was. So one night after Lew left for Earth, Marta Conorado decided to go out and get good and drunk. 54 54 The motif of the Seven Seas Bar was the old sailing navy of the early twenty-first century. It was a unique and popular feature of the officers' open mess system, if only because the drinks and meals served there were catered by a live serving staff. The waiters and waitresses flitting between tables taking orders were off-duty sailors earning extra pay. They did not seem to mind the unfamiliar and uncomfortable costumes of the old navy the job required, and the patrons loved them. A huge placard mounted by the entrance to the Seven Seas explained the rules of the club: no headgear could be worn at the bar, under penalty of buying everyone else there a drink; formal dress was only permitted in the dining room; and the tip was set at one percent of the tab. This system had always prevailed at Bronnysund and other primitive outposts, but most naval personnel at Mainside had never been to such places often enough to consider the practice routine. The Conorados had been to the Seven Seas several times and Marta liked the atmosphere, especially the bar, a long wooden affair where drinkers sat on high chairs and ordered their concoctions from a bartender. Of course, the actual mixing and pouring of the beverages was done by a servo, but the novelty came from being served by a human being dressed in old-fashioned garb. The bar was a dimly lighted, informal place where people could sit together and enjoy quiet conversations. Tobacco and thule were permitted, and the haze of cigarette smoke was said to be part of the bar's attractive ambience. Marta had only been in the bar area one other time, with her husband, but the place attracted her. She noted on that previous occasion several unaccompanied women, evidently unmarried naval officers, who seemed at home there. She realized that the bar was an ideal place for single people to meet, and on that particular night Marta felt an urge to talk to a stranger, any stranger. Of the dozen seats at the bar, only three were occupied. Hoping she was not acting too self-consciously, Marta took a seat by herself at the opposite end.

"Good evening, ma'am, my name is Jerry," the bartender said. "What would you like to have?" Not a drinker, Marta was suddenly nonplussed. "A beer, please?"

"Yes, ma'am, we have..." He rattled off the names of several brands of beer. They were mostly incomprehensible to her. But she did recognize one of them.

"Reindeer," she answered as nonchalantly as she could.

"An excellent choice." The bartender was a yeoman first cla.s.s earning a bit of extra money tending bar, which he had been doing for some time now. He sized Marta up quickly: fiftyish, good facial bones, athletic or at least in good physical shape, married, out by herself, husband with the Fleet. The Seven Seas period atmosphere might be phony and contrived, but Marta Conorado's situation that night was as old as men and the sea.

Marta had drunk Reindeer ale many times before, usually with meals, but she had never particularly liked the brew. But on this night it tasted good to her. She finished her gla.s.s and ordered another. The yeoman glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as he added the second beer to her tab. He knew very well what the cla.s.sy broad wanted, and here he came-a navy aviator dressed in his flight suit. The lieutenant stood just inside the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light.

"Excuse me, ma'am, may I take this seat?" he asked as he slid onto the stool next to Marta's. 55 55 "Sure," she said. "My name is Marta."

It had been a very hard day at Camp Ellis. Since there was little to do in FIST headquarters, Colonel Ramadan felt obliged to get involved in things that the deputy commander of a Marine FIST would normally not be bothered with, to the great annoyance of the base maintenance personnel, but there was nothing they could do about it. Early in the morning the sewage system had sprung a leak, and Ramadan had spent most of the morning with the engineers trying to get it fixed. When he got back to his office, his system was inundated with messages from Kingdom relayed by Fleet, and although all were routine requests for logistical a.s.sistance, he considered acting on them a priority. As a result, it was way after sundown before he'd finished with the ch.o.r.e. Back in his quarters, Ramadan lighted one of his precious Anniversarios and poured himself a large gla.s.s of ale. He looked over his books. One struck his fancy, and he took it to the alcove on the other side of the room, where he did his reading in a comfortable captain's chair. He stretched, sipped from his beer, and read at random from the first page that fell open on his lap: This inn was furnished with not a single article that we could either eat or drink; but Mr. Murchison, factor to the Laird of Macleod in Gleneg, sent us a bottle of rum and some sugar... Ramadan smiled to himself. The pa.s.sage was from James Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides Hebrides , the third edition, the last one to have had the advantage of Boswell's corrections and editions. It was not an original, of course, just a limited editions reprint, but still extremely valuable, and very precious to Ramadan personally. After many years of traveling to the most primitive reaches of Human s.p.a.ce, he often felt he understood how Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson had felt on their tour of Scotland in the eighteenth century. Talk about "not a single article that we could either eat or drink"-Colonel Ramadan, as a Marine, had been there, done that. He suddenly felt a compelling urge for companionship. Carefully, he closed the book and set it aside. The officers' mess would be a dull place tonight, only a few solitary souls seeking a late night snack. No, he required something more lively. He got up and dressed. It would be a long drive, but there was a club on Mainside he liked a lot. He'd spend the evening there. , the third edition, the last one to have had the advantage of Boswell's corrections and editions. It was not an original, of course, just a limited editions reprint, but still extremely valuable, and very precious to Ramadan personally. After many years of traveling to the most primitive reaches of Human s.p.a.ce, he often felt he understood how Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson had felt on their tour of Scotland in the eighteenth century. Talk about "not a single article that we could either eat or drink"-Colonel Ramadan, as a Marine, had been there, done that. He suddenly felt a compelling urge for companionship. Carefully, he closed the book and set it aside. The officers' mess would be a dull place tonight, only a few solitary souls seeking a late night snack. No, he required something more lively. He got up and dressed. It would be a long drive, but there was a club on Mainside he liked a lot. He'd spend the evening there.

The airman's name was Lieutenant (jg) Ken Busby and he flew a Raptor. He was already an ace, having shot down the requisite number of Diamundian aircraft during the war there-he'd told Marta all this before his rear end had time to warm the seat he took beside her. That was the campaign Lew Conorado had fought on the ground, against Marston St. Cyr's tanks, while this Ken was zooming around shooting up a third-rate air force. But she didn't say anything. That evening, Marta did not want to be reminded of her husband.

"Are you a civilian employee here, Marta, or...?" Ken asked. He'd ordered bourbon on the rocks and another beer for her. He left the question hanging because he knew the answer already. He deliberately did not ask if she was married, but had seen the impression on her left ring finger. She'd left the ring home. She wanted to try life without it for the first time in more than twenty years. 56 56 "Um," she responded, and Ken was satisfied to let it go.

"Thule?" He offered Marta a cigarette. "It's a Raucher, one of the prime Wanderjahrian brands."

"No thanks, Ken, the beer is enough for me." Marta smiled. "How about you? What's your ship?"

" CSS Butner CSS Butner. We're here pending-" He hesitated, for the information was cla.s.sified. "-a berthing opening, for supplies and refueling, you know." Marta's heart skipped a beat. She knew that the Butner Butner was off to support 34th FIST on wherever it had been sent. If 34th FIST needed the support of a carrier on this operation, it was far more than just a was off to support 34th FIST on wherever it had been sent. If 34th FIST needed the support of a carrier on this operation, it was far more than just a "routine" peacekeeping deployment. Thank G.o.d, she thought for the umpteenth time, Lew will be out of this one! Then she kicked herself. She was being selfish: Company L would need him now more than ever, if it were deploying. Then she kicked herself again: Wasn't that the reason their marriage was breaking up? All these deployments? She smiled inwardly, Once a Marine's wife always...? With effort, she suppressed that train of thought.

"How about you, Ken? Where are you staying?" Ken's heart skipped a beat. Could this be...? "I'm staying at a BOQ here on Mainside. Liberty for a few days, you know? I plan on going into New Oslo tomorrow. Would you-be free?"

"I'm free, Ken. But let me think about it for a while." Marta regarded the young lieutenant. He was a handsome man-"dashing," was really the word. He had the easygoing, devil-may-care look of the fighter pilot, the kind of man who lived to fly. He wore a scarf about his neck, dark blue with white polka dots. "Are those the colors of your squadron?" she asked.

"Yes!" Ken answered enthusiastically, then launched into an interminable monologue about Attack Squadron 6, the "Blue Devils." When he talked about his flying unit, Ken's face flushed with enthusiasm. He used his hands to ill.u.s.trate each point, especially when he talked about aircraft performance. It was impossible for Marta not to like the dedicated young flier. She realized he was nervous. This was probably his first attempt to pick up a married woman, or a recently divorced older woman, and she smiled. Ken misinterpreted that as interest in what he was saying about Attack Squadron 6.

"Another drink?" Marta asked, pointing at Ken's nearly empty gla.s.s.

"Oh, sure." He ordered another bourbon for himself and a beer for Marta and then rushed on: "But I'm telling you, Marta, this d.i.c.kerson guy, he's G.o.dd.a.m.ned crazy! Well, we're all a little crazy, you know, but flying a Raptor at Mach 2 underneath a G.o.dd.a.m.ned bridge!" Marta found herself laughing with Ken at his stories. She wondered what it would be like to have s.e.x with him. Before either of them realized it, they were holding hands and laughing together. It was the alcohol and the thule, of course, but Marta was beginning to enjoy Ken's company-a lot.

"Good evening, Mrs. Conorado," a deep male voice said from behind them. Marta whirled around. "Ah, why, good evening, Colonel Ramadan! What a, er, surprise to see you!" She felt as if she were a teenager again and had been just caught masturbating by her father. Her face turned very red, and she hoped in the dim barlight it was not too noticeable. Ramadan stood with a drink in one hand and a book under the other arm. He smiled. 57 57 "Uh, Ken, Lieutenant Busby, this is Colonel Ramadan," Marta said.

"Evening, sir." Ken nodded at Colonel Ramadan. He thought at first the colonel was Marta's husband, then a friend of her husband's. He'd just tried to hit on the wife of a senior Marine officer!

"Evening, Lieutenant, Marta. You enjoying yourselves?"

"Oh, yessir," they both blurted out at the same time.

"Well, excuse me." He nodded at the two of them and walked to a table in a dark corner of the bar. Marta felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice. One step and she'd plunge over. Should she take it? She hesitated. She was not a superst.i.tious woman, but Ramadan's unexpected intervention had been provident. "Ah, Ken, I've got to go," she announced.

"Ah, sure, Marta, sure. I understand. Um, one for the road?" Marta shook her head no, and finished her beer in one gulp. She kissed Ken lightly on the cheek and walked, not very steadily, out of the bar. Ken shrugged. Just as well, he thought. Well, tomorrow it was on to New Oslo. But he had really liked her. A guy could talk to a woman like Marta. Boy, he thought, some lucky jarhead, to be married to a woman like that!

Back in her apartment, Marta locked the door, shook off her clothes, and stepped into the shower. She turned the water on as hot as she could stand it. She stayed in there for a long time.

CHAPTER TEN.

"Watch my tip, Wing. We're going seventy degrees starboard, take a flyover on that swamp."

"Roger, Lead," the wingman on Raptor Flight 2 replied. Corporal Rolo Strataslavic, on watch in the squadron's comm shack, heard the voices but didn't register the words. He was too heavily engrossed in the Raptor tech manual he was studying. More than anything else, Strataslavic wanted to get out of headquarters and into the squadron's Raptor section as an electronics tech. There were a lot more high-paying jobs in the civilian world for s.p.a.cecraft and starcraft electronics techs than there were for comm techs. He knew that experience working on Raptors could help him land one of those jobs when he got out of the Corps in another two years. Everybody knew he spent his watch time studying, and his superiors approved, though unofficially, of course. It was expected that the men spend work time studying to advance themselves. It was different on a combat deployment, when everybody had to pay close attention to everything because lives were at stake. But Kingdom was hardly a combat op, just a bunch of peasants who could be dealt with by an army military police company, if the d.a.m.n army could get its act together.

"Wing, cover me, I'm going down to take a closer look at that."

"Roger. Wing orbits." A moment later the wingman exclaimed, "What the h.e.l.l?" Corporal Strataslavic didn't notice immediately that the transmissions from Raptor Flight 2 had ceased. He was immersed in a particularly tricky section on superconductivity. 58 58 When he did notice, he started adjusting the comm's controls, thinking something had slipped. He ran a routine ping and got it back-the comm seemed to be working right. Raptor Flight 1 was still coming through on its comm. He flipped frequencies on the two comms. Flight 1 came through loud and clear on 2's comm. Flight 2 didn't come in on 1's. He called 2 but got no response. Strataslavic punched his own comm and called for the duty officer. He had the comms switched back to their proper frequencies by the time Ensign N!amce entered.

"What'cha got, Strat?" N!amce asked.

"Flight Two's off comm, sir."

"Gimme." N!amce held out a hand, Strataslavic slapped the comm's mike into it.

"Raptor Flight Two, this is Nest. Come in. Over." When he didn't get an immediate reply, he said, "There's a time and a place for fun and games, kiddies. This ain't them. Come in." N!amce had been a grizzled master sergeant when he finally decided to take what he called an early retirement by accepting a commission. He knew too well how Raptor drivers sometimes got lazy, or decided to relieve their boredom by "losing comm" and getting the troops at base all lit up.

"This is N!amce, Raptor Two. Come back or you're mine when you come in." That was no idle threat. Even though every pilot in the squadron held a higher rank than he did, only the squadron commander and sergeant major had more time in the Corps. N!amce had spent decades keeping junior enlisted men in line, and he wasn't shy about applying the same tactics to company-grade officers who messed up. He was also experienced enough not to let the concern show on his face or in his voice when Flight 2 still didn't reply.

"Play it back for me, Strat." Corporal Strataslavic diddled the controls to replay the last two minutes before comm died.

"So what the h.e.l.l was it?" N!amce muttered as he pulled out his own comm and hit the b.u.t.ton for the squadron commander's office. "N!amce," he said when the CO's aide answered. "Raptor Flight Two is missing, over-" He glanced at the data flow. "-the Swamp of Perdition." Ten minutes later Raptor Flight 1 was...o...b..ting over the swamp where Flight 2 had vanished, and a hopper was on its way to FIST headquarters to pick up the recon squad.

It wasn't the largest swamp on Kingdom, but it might have been the most awful. Its animate and its vegetative life were voracious eaters of flesh, and fully omniverous in their tastes. It was almost totally unexplored and, unlike other swamps, no humans-or other creatures of Earth-lived in it. They called it the Swamp of Perdition.

Staff Sergeant Wu, the FIST recon squad leader, stepped softly into the murky water of a sluggish stream. He didn't flinch when the cold water reached his crotch. He eased forward, sliding his feet across the muck of the stream bottom, toward the other bank. This was the most dangerous time, where the water pa.s.sed his hips, it swirled, making his position visible. Lance Corporal Donat, the recon squad's comm man, stayed behind, covering him until he reached the other side. Then the two continued on 59 59 opposite sides, stepping on their toes so their heels wouldn't squelch in the mud. With the chameleon shields on their helmets in place, the only sign of their pa.s.sage was their footprints; they stepped too slowly and cautiously to mark their movement with noise. In the darkness under the swamp's dense canopy, their footprints were visible to only the very sharpest eyes, and the prints rapidly filled in. Wu hated going in blind like this. The only information he had was that two Raptors from Flight 2 had vanished over a particular spot in this swamp. Cause unknown. Enemy force unknown. h.e.l.l, enemy presence unknown, except that two Raptors couldn't spontaneously explode from mechanical failure like the string-of-pearls-the ring of intelligence satellites the navy strung around Kingdom-showed happened to Raptor Flight 2. Well, going in to find out was Recon's job. More often than not Recon went in blind, sometimes even this blind. But no matter how often he had to go in blind, Staff Sergeant Wu still hated it.

The four Marines of recon team one followed another stream a couple of hundred meters to the right of Wu and Donat. Team two was three kilometers to their left. Team three was a third of the way around the swamp in the other direction. Wu allocated three hours for them to go the two kilometers to where they would rendevous, a kilometer from where the two Raptors had vanished. He hoped they weren't rushing so fast that any of them would run into an ambush. Foliage seemed to drip, and fall lankly from the treelike endemic plants. Mossy growths crawled about trunks. The vegetative life of the swamp looked like it was dead and rotting; it smelled that way too. Fliers cawed in the canopy, insectoids buzzed and flitted about, landed on the men, tasted, found them unpalatable, flitted and buzzed off to find better dining. Crawling things with no legs or short legs slithered over the mud; longer legged creatures squelched through it. Something big splashed into the stream around a bend. Things that lived in the water rippled the surface. Wu saw a carnivorous plant slam its petals shut on a nectar-seeking creature, saw an animal the size of a young child rotting in the snares of another kind of carnivorous plant. He murmured an alert on the all-hands band-there might be larger carnivorous plants. He'd really hate to have a man injured or lost to an ambitious daffodil. Wu transmitted a situation report every fifteen minutes. The report was always the same: "Situation as before. Continuing." His location was automatically embedded in the transmission. The three team leaders made the same reports to him.

The recon Marines moved slowly, deliberately, deeper into the swamp. They probed every shadow with their infras, light gatherers, and magnifiers, sought to find and examine every place a man could hide. They gauged each step before taking it, never put their full weight on the forward foot until they were sure of it. They sidestepped growth when they could; gently, slowly, moved it aside, and delicately replaced it when they couldn't. They frequently pa.s.sed within a meter of swamp creatures without disturbing them. Two hours of that manner of movement will exhaust a normal human being; it will even tire an experienced combat Marine. But the recon Marines had trained for it and were still a long way from needing a second wind.

Two hours in, Staff Sergeant Wu finally found an anomaly. There was a beaten area where a sheen of surface water showed the ground had recently been dry. He toggled the all-hands circuit and told his teams, then switched to the command circuit and reported to FIST headquarters what he'd found and what he was doing about it. He left the command circuit open-if anything happened to him, FIST would need to know immediately. Donat joined Wu while he studied the area with his various vision-enhancing shields and scent detectors. Ten minutes' observation of everything he could see in any format failed to show the presence of any life-form he hadn't already seen in the swamp. 60 60 "What does the UPUD show?" he asked Donat.

"Nothing," Donat murmured back.

"Cover me." Wu rose to a crouch and slowly padded in a circle a dozen meters outside the beaten area. His vision shields and scent detectors still didn't pick up anything that didn't belong. Donat didn't warn him of anything from the UPUD. Satisfied that no enemy lurked near, observing the beaten area, he gave the scent detector to Donat and entered it. Broken swamp growth was mashed into the ground in patches that matched the pattern of growth elsewhere under the trees. It was hard to see surface details through the skim of water in the dimness under the trees, but his shields helped. Up close, the infra showed that an irregularly flattened patch of ground of about three square meters was a degree or two warmer than the surrounding ground, as though a piece of heat-producing machinery had been removed a few hours earlier. Here and there were other, unidentifiable marks on the ground-holes, sc.r.a.pes, and gouges. He found a few footprints, some shod, some not. Most of them were smaller than his. Two of them didn't quite match, making him think they were made by different individuals; they were more than twice the size of the others. He recorded his observations and burst-transmitted the data to FIST HQ. Finished, he reported in, "Continuing," then sent the same message on the all-hands circuit. He and Donat moved out as cautiously as before. Maybe more cautiously-now they knew someone else was or had been there.

Brigadier Sturgeon was close to letting his anger show. As if it wasn't bad enough that the images Archbishop General Lambsblood claimed proved the rebels weren't human couldn't be found anywhere, neither Amba.s.sador Spears nor his chief-of-station knew anything about them. A Raptor flight had abruptly exploded without evident cause or threat. And now the FIST recon squad that went in to try to locate whatever might have shot the Raptors down had only found one mystery spot, about which his F2 could tell him nothing more than what the recon squad leader had said in his report from the spot. Sturgeon had the best people and equipment available to the Confederation military, yet he was blind-not to mention that he'd lost people-and he didn't like that one little bit. Well, Marines don't sit back and pout when things don't go the way they want, they take action, he thought. M Company from the infantry battalion was already in position near the Swamp of Perdition. Sturgeon shook his head at the name, then ignored it. On the FIST commander's order, the 127 Marines and four navy medical corpsmen of M Company boarded eight Dragons and entered the swamp. Two of the air-cushioned, amphibious Dragons followed each of four streams, headed toward the beaten-down area where the entire recon squad now waited. From inside the company commander's Dragon, the company's two unmanned aerial vehicle controllers flew their "birds." There was no way to hide the roar of the Dragons' fans, but the birds were camouflaged as large, primitive flying animals indigenous to the swamp so they might not be noticed by any foe who saw them. They flew about a half kilometer ahead of the Dragons, zigging and zagging to cover the front of all four Dragon teams. Each UAV controller wore a helmet that showed him three views of what the birds could see-normal vision, infra, and amplified light. He could increase or decrease magnification on any of the views he wanted. Sensors on the birds recorded information on chemicals in the air and sent them back, the smells 61 61 of the swamp-olfactory signals of life-forms. The two Marines filtered the audio pickup to mute the usual insectoid and avian sounds and listened for anything that sounded like voices. Everyone else in the Dragons sat stoically waiting; only the drivers and gunners could see outside; the pa.s.sengers were blind. Little more than halfway to the destination, Dragon 3 erupted in a fireball that vaporized parts of it and sent the rest of it spinning out in chunks of metal and flesh. Dragon 4, 3's teammate, jerked forward and to the side in an evasive maneuver that would have thrown its pa.s.sengers about like dice in a cup if they hadn't been strapped in against just that possibility.

"Evasive action, everybody," Captain Boonstra, the M Company commander, ordered, and followed with, "Report!" He didn't ask who had been on Dragon 3. He knew it was one blaster squad and the a.s.sault squad from second platoon. Later he'd have to write letters to the families of those men, but he didn't have the time to think about that now, when he had to give all his concern to his live Marines. The remaining Dragons transmitted their locations and dispositions, which Boonstra scanned on his heads-up display as he asked for threat data.

"There wasn't any threat warning," reported Corporal Lieuwe, the Dragon 4 commander. "Three just went up!"

"We don't see a d.a.m.n thing, sir," said Sergeant Kitching, the company's UAV chief. He could see the data coming in from bird two as well as from his own. The other Dragons also reported no threat warnings or indication of people nearby.

"Dragon Four, withdraw two hundred meters," Boonstra ordered as he reviewed the locations of his Marines and checked that the data was automatically being relayed to the battalion and FIST headquarters. "All dismount. Converge on second platoon. Second platoon, hold your position until the rest of the company arrives." By the time the company a.s.sembled around the remains of second platoon, either he'd have a plan of action or higher command would come up with one for him. Both Brigadier Sturgeon and the infantry battalion commander, Commander van Winkle, were smart enough to let the man on the scene run the show. Sturgeon only asked, "What do you need from me?" Sturgeon and van Winkle conferred briefly. They were in full agreement that the enemy forces in the swamp must be found and dealt with. Sturgeon ordered van Winkle to get the rest of his battalion in position to sweep through the swamp and the squadron to get all its Raptors into the sky in case the Marines in the mud needed support. He held off on artillery prep fire. Twenty-three minutes after Dragon 3 inexplicably exploded, M Company began moving in a wave formation through the swamp. First platoon, reinforced by a section from the a.s.sault platoon, advanced on a ragged line half a kilometer wide toward the area where Dragon 3 was killed. The company command element, the survivors of second platoon, and the rest of the a.s.sault platoon formed the second wave. Third platoon brought up the rear. First platoon's PFC Gerlach was on the extreme right of the lead wave. He wasn't greatly experienced, had only been with 34th FIST for a few months and had no deployments under his belt. His inexperience and the shock of losing half a platoon all at once made him hyperalert. Had he not been so alert, he might not have looked so carefully through that break in the dripping foliage where he saw a shadow some thirty meters distant. The shadow had a shape and size he hadn't yet seen in the swamp. He stopped and methodically examined it. All his naked eyes showed was a dark blob that might or might not be 62 62 something. His magnifier shield did nothing more than make the blob bigger. His infras showed a ma.s.s the size of a small person, but with a temperature a few degrees below human norm. It was his light gatherer that showed it most clearly.

The shadow resolved into a man-shaped creature lying p.r.o.ne in the mud, facing parallel to the company's movement. The creature was naked and had yellowish skin. It appeared to have slits in its side. The most ominous thing about it was the artifact on its back, tanks of some sort. A hose ran from the tanks to a nozzle it held in its hands.

"I have contact," Gerlach murmured into the squad circuit on his helmet comm. Slowly, cautiously, deliberately, he began to turn around to withdraw. He froze before turning very far. He saw another one. Swiveling only his eyes, he probed the surrounding shadows and saw more. His skin p.r.i.c.kled. "They're all around," he murmured into the circuit. They didn't seem to be aware of him yet; he thought he should be able to slip out of the formation fairly easily. Few people who weren't Marines knew how to see a Marine wearing his chameleons and with his chameleon shield in place. But they were aware of him, they were merely waiting for more Marines to enter the killing zone of the ambush. When the ambush commander realized they had been spotted, he gave the command to open fire. Four of the ambushers aimed the nozzles of their weapons at Gerlach and sprayed a greenish fluid. Two of the streams. .h.i.t his helmet and melted away the electronics of his comm so that even if he had been able to scream, his voice wouldn't transmit; some of the fluid from the two streams that hit his helmet struck his face and got sucked into his throat when he tried to scream from the pain. Four other Marines also went down, screaming in agony as the greenish fluid ate into their flesh and dissolved their bones.

"Echelon right!" Captain Boonstra bellowed into the all-hands circuit. "Volley fire by squads!" First platoon's second squad leader, Sergeant Janackova, with Gerlach and two other men from his squad already down, dove into the mud and was shouting commands at his remaining men before he heard Captain Boonstra's order for squad volley fire.

"Five meters beyond Gerlach!" Janackova called, and seven plasma bolts from as many blasters struck in an irregular line beyond the dead Marine. "Tighten 'em up. Fire!" Seven more bolts bloomed fire that sizzled in the mud and raised a cloud of steam. "Up ten!" The Marines adjusted their aim to hit the ground ten meters beyond the previous shots. "Right five!" The seven Marines fired again, five meters to the right of their previous shots. "Left ten!" They adjusted and fired again. "Up ten, fire for effect." The seven blasters shifted again and rained fire into the area. If anybody was there, they'd be parboiled by the steam if they weren't hit by bolts. The squad would continue the fire until the platoon commander ordered them to shift aim or to cease fire.

More plasma bolts crackled to third squad's flanks, raising shocked clouds of steam from the mud and dank foliage. To their right, blaster bolts were joined by the ripping crackle of an a.s.sault gun. Janackova checked his HUD; the first squad of his own platoon was on his left; a squad from second platoon and a gun from the a.s.sault platoon were on the right. He didn't know how the enemy knew to set off their ambush, but they hit so accurately he thought they must have infras. Well, the roiling steam was hot enough to conceal the Marines from infrared vision. Now the enemy would be firing as blindly as they were.

More commands came over the all-hands circuit. The squad from second platoon and the a.s.sault gun 63 63 with it shifted their fire farther to the right. First platoon's a.s.sault squad moved up between the two blaster squads, and two squads from the a.s.sault platoon moved up behind them.

"First platoon, up and advance briskly," came the voice of Ensign Chinsamy, the platoon commander. Janackova repeated the command to his men, looked left and right through his infras to make sure they obeyed him and he hadn't lost anybody else, then stepped out at a fast walk into the steam cloud. The steam a few meters beyond Gerlach's corpse was already dissipated, and the second cloud ten meters past that was also nearly gone. The third cloud, where the fire had been concentrated, was still dense and hot. The ground, so suddenly dried out, crackled and crunched underfoot. The Marines burst through it, almost trotting to get out of the heat. One man in each fire team had his infra screen in place, one his magnifier, and the third used his light gatherer. When they were twenty meters beyond the stream, Sergeant Janackova caught sight of a form running through the trees. He snapped his blaster to his shoulder and fired at it.

He stared in shock when the running form flashed into flame. He'd never heard of such a thing. The rest of the reinforced platoon opened fire when Janackova shot at the fleeing figure. No unseen bodies flashed into flame.