Two Space War Part 1

The Two-s.p.a.ce War.

Dave Grossman and Leo Frankowski.

Introduction.

CALIPH: Ah, if there shall ever arise a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets have forgotten the people, though they send their ships round Taprobane and their armies across the hills of Hindustan, though their city be greater than Babylon of old, though they mine a league into earth or mount to the stars on wingsa"what of them?

Ha.s.sAN: They will be a dark patch upon the world.

Quoted in Other Men's Flowers

by Field Marshall Earl A.P. Wavell

On Warriors and Warrior Scientists

My "day job" is to be on the road, almost 300 days a year, training soldiers (the Green Berets, the Rangers, the USMC, etc.) and cops (the FBI, the ATF, the CHP, the RCMP, etc.) about the psychology and physiology of combat. It's a great job. I teach them and then they teach me, in an endless, ever refining feedback loop. I can never thank them enough for putting it on the line for us, every day, and for sharing their experiences with me. You can get a better feel for what I do, and take a look at some of my scholarly writings on these topics, on my web site: www.killology.com, or my books, On Killing and On Combat.

I need to thank my fellow "warrior scientists." The concept of science fiction has usually involved the integration of science, or projected science, into fiction. This is the first book to integrate the new field of "warrior science" into fiction. The characters in my book cite real "twenty-first century" researchers such as Alexis Artwohl, coauthor of Deadly Force Encounters, and Bruce Siddle, the man who coined the term "warrior science" and the author of Sharpening the Warrior's Edge. I sincerely believe that hundreds of years from now these pioneer friends of mine will be remembered and cited.

The combat experiences of my characters are based upon the latest research, on what I'm teaching, and on what those who have been there have taught me. Any errors are my own!

On Poetry and Science Fiction

If not otherwise indicated, the t.i.tles and authors of the poetry used throughout the book are listed at the end. Lord Wavell and his book, Other Men's Flowers, deserve special mention. Wavell was the commander of the British Empire's armed forces in World War II. After the war he put all the poems that he had committed to memory (that's right, to memory) in a book. Wavell, perhaps the last of the great "warrior poets," is one of the models for my hero, Lieutenant Melville.

I've tried to craft a world in which deep respect, even veneration for poetry could exist, but in reality there's no need to make up such a world. Throughout history, from Homer through Lord Wavell, warriors existed in that world. In an environment such as two-s.p.a.ce, where technology can't exist, the power of well crafted words would again be the key to men's hearts. The leader who masters such words would have a powerful edge in mastering his men.

I also wanted to construct a world in which science fiction would be the primary literature to survive from our era. The creators of SF are "pure poetry" to my soul, giants on whose shoulders I stand.

On Poets

But most of all I thank the poets who have gone before me. The poets of words and the poets of bullets, blows and swords. They wrote down their poems, or their narratives of combat, or they allowed me to interview them. They made it possible for me (as Lord Wavell puts it, quoting Montaigne) to build a garden "of other men's flowers."

When you read these poems, I encourage you to read them aloud. Or, if you're in a public place, at least mumble them quietly! For poetry was meant to be spoken, not read, and you lose half the joy if you don't let these words, these ancient, powerful words, roll off your tongue and o'er your lips.

Hopefully the words in between the poetry will give you some small measure of pleasure as well.

And Finally

To Leo Frankowski, a great partner and true gentleman, friend, and scholar of the old school. To our publisher, Jim Baen, who has proven himself to be a good friend and a man of vision. To my faithful and true friends and proofreaders: Rocky Warren, Steel Parsons, John Lang, Elantu, CC, and many others.

Most of all, to my princess and favorite proofreader, my Jeanne. In Beethoven's words, "From the heart it has come, to the heart it shall go."

Hooah!

Dave Grossman

The Crew

of Her Majesty, the Queen of Westerness'

24-Pounder Frigate, Fang

Lt. Thomas Melville, Captain McAndrews, his steward Ulrich, his c.o.xswain, "c.o.x'in"

Archibald Hargis, his clerk Lt. Daniel Fielder, First Officer Lady Elphinstone, Ship's surgeon, a Sylvan Mrs. Vodi, her "lob-lolly girl"

Pete Etzen, a corpsman (medic), "Doc"

Thadeaus Brun, a corpsman (medic), "Doc"

Brother Theo Petreckski, Ship's purser, a monk Mr. Caleb Tibbits, Ship's carpenter, "Chips"

Mr. Darren Barlet, Ship's master gunner, "Guns"

Sgt. Don Von Rito, Ship's gunnery sergeant, "Gunny"

Chief Petty Officer Bronson Hans, "Chief." Later "Mr." and Ship's sailing master Marines Sgt. Broadax, a Dwarrowdelf. Later "Lt."

Cpl. Kobbsven Private Harold Jarvis Rangers Josiah Westminster Aubrey Valandil, a Sylvan Midshipmen Jarad Crater. Later "Lt."

Buckley Archer. Later "Lt."

Garth Aquinar Faisal, Chang, Hezikiah Jubal, Lao Tung, Kande Ngobe, and Ellis Palmer Ship's Dogs Ship's Cats The Monkeys

Chapter the 1st.

A Race of Rangers

They were the glory of the race of rangers, Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship, Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate, Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters . . .

Retreating they form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks, Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times Their number, was the price they took in advance . . .

"Song of Myself"

Walt Whitman

"What does that boy think he's doing?" muttered Lieutenant Thomas Melville. He sat on the Pier in the oppressive heat of mid-afternoon. He'd received only one wound in their recent battle, an ignominious clawing of his right b.u.t.tock. Not too deep, but sufficient to make him sit carefully. Spread before him was the emerald shade of the copse of huge trees they'd fought so hard to defend. Exhausted and spent from desperate battle, he watched little Midshipman Aquinar as he crawled into the white bones of their beached cutter.

He looked out on the vast expanse of forest that encompa.s.sed their hill. Reaching up and behind him he put a hand on the Keel of his Ship, which now formed the Pier. > > Answered Swish-tail, > Through this strange, telepathic link with his faithful Ship, Melville "heard" these words, but they came with a great weight of context and additional information that was subtly communicated, so that Melville knew exactly what Swish-tail meant. The Keel of his little ship now disappeared up into two-s.p.a.ce, into Flatland, forming a link between the two realms. It was here, and there.

> > Melville thought back, > > > Melville added, looking sadly at his old command, his little cutter, lying on its side next to the copse of trees that topped this hill. > > Still, it was sad. Was there anything in the universe quite so sad as a beached sailing ship? Especially a Ship of two-s.p.a.ce, looking like two old-time wooden sailing ships joined at the waterline, with masts protruding out from both top and bottom. They were majestic and grand, with their sails spread as they sped from star to star, across the sh.o.r.eless seas of Flatland. But even a one-masted cutter like his lively little Swish-tail was pathetic and sad the instant you cut the contacts to the Keel and beached it in three-s.p.a.ce.

Immediately after their crash landing, Melville and his small crew pulled out the precious Keel and lovingly planted it in the living earth like a mast, or a flagpole at the top of the hill. The rest of Melville's company came down the Keel from the Kestrel and their mothership left them, never to return. Or at least not yet.

Many of the pure white Nimbrell timbers were stripped from Swish-tail's hull to form a platform around the Keel, which now became a Pier. Melville was here to "talk" with Swish-tail after their battle. She was his friend, and a commander needed someone outside the chain of command to visit with. She seemed to be happy there, planted in the living earth. A Ship died and a world was born. Soon, she would merge with this world, becoming its gateway to Two-s.p.a.ce.

They paused in companionable silence as Melville leaned back against the Keel and watched little Midshipman Aquinar make another trip from the bowels of the old cutter. Again he reached lovingly up and put a hand on the white Moss coating the Keel and asked, > Early in their forays into Flatland, humans had discovered the remarkable white fungus they'd named Lady Elbereth's Gift or Elbereth Moss. Like everything in Two-s.p.a.ce, Elbereth Moss existed only in two dimensions. But it was also capable of growing on the portion of a Pier that extended into normal, three-dimensional s.p.a.ce, like the encrusted sea creatures on the pilings of a dock at low tide.

In two-s.p.a.ce it just appeared, like a fungus, adhering to and eventually coating Nimbrell wood and Keels in two-s.p.a.ce. It was white and impossibly thin. It also provided oxygen and light. Most of all, across time, it became sentient, giving life to the white Ships of two-s.p.a.ce. The men of Westerness communicated their awe and respect by making proper nouns out of terms like Keel, Pier, and Ship, when referring to a sentient life-form.

Melville felt the Ship respond to his idle question. > But he wasn't really thinking about the boy. Melville was thinking about Kestrel, their mothership. Wondering if it would ever return to take them home to Westerness and Evereven, where "softly silver fountains fall." Most of all, at this moment, Melville wondered if he would ever again take a long cold drink of water. To distract himself from his thirst and exhaustion, he watched the boy's trips with detached bemus.e.m.e.nt. The little barefoot midshipman had taken off his blue jacket, and was dressed now in a dirty white shirt and sailcloth trousers, like some crawling worm or moth flitting back and forth.

This was the boy's fourth journey. He couldn't be after the water barrel; the tap to the barrel was on the other end, and the area where the little midshipman was crawling was considerably lower than that.

Each time, Aquinar crawled over the bodies of the creatures they had just killed, cut down in windrows, with rifled musket, pistol and sword, as their little company defended the tiny perimeter. This was Melville's miniature world. A grove of trees with their precious shade atop a gra.s.sy hill, the bones of their cutter with its precious water barrel, and the Pier where he sat.

Within the bowels of the cutter, and spread out on the west side, the far side from the little midshipman's approach, was the aid station. Here, under the shade of sailcloth tarps, were many marines and sailors, and one dog, all seriously wounded in their recent battle. They were tended by Lady Elphinstone, their Sylvan surgeon. She'd been attached to their ship as a part of this cooperative effort between Westerness and Osgil. She was fair of face, with her golden hair pulled back behind her head in a bun. She wore a b.u.t.tercup yellow gown, with a gra.s.s green sash about her waist. Both were now stained and smeared with the leaking lifeblood of many men. The surgeon was a.s.sisted by Petreckski, their monkish purser, his brown robe well concealing the blood of their wounded. Their two buckskin-clad rangers, bone weary after their long chase and fierce battle, were also contributing their extensive healing skills.

Deep in the shade of the trees were their dead. Six men, two ship's dogs, and one cat were lovingly laid out under careful guard, lest their bodies be defiled by local creatures. They rested amidst the trees they'd died to defend. Soon they would be buried there.

Melville had no idea what the boy thought he was doing, going back and forth from the bowels of their cutter to the depths of the woods. But he knew just exactly what these dead aliens were doing here.

Several of the strange, six-legged, dingy white "apes" had died up here on the Pier as they tried to work their way around the left flank. There was one close to him. Close enough to prod with his foot.

In books, the writers often talk of people voiding their bowels when they die. You could get the impression from these gritty, realistic writers that this always happened. But the truth was that it only happened if you had a "load" in the lower intestines. Thus, Melville could tell which creatures had fed well last night, and which hadn't. This fellow, with the local equivalent of flies crawling in and out of his mouth and across the facets of his compound eyes, had eaten very well last night.

The mouth was located at the top of the creature's skull, the vertical nose slits below that, and the compound eyes were low in the skull. Except for when the head launched forward on its accordion neck (mouth first, teeth first, in violent attack), it remained nestled back into the creature's . . . chest? . . . thorax? The end result was that the mouth (a very respectable mouth, full of very nasty and creditable teeth) was at the top of the skull, with the compound eyes protected, barely peeking out from where they crouched in the chest cavity. Now, relaxed in death, the head protruded from the body and the ape's eyes seemed to look reproachfully up at him, ignoring the intruding flies.

An orphan's curse would drag to h.e.l.l

A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

Well, this was no "man" thought Melville, it probably wasn't even sentient, but it was a living creature that he'd helped to kill. "Your fault," he muttered, looking his accuser in the eye. "Don't blame me. You were the ones that had to go and attack us, with all that howling and screeching. What did you expect?"

> added Swish-tail, > > replied Melville, jokingly, prodding it again with his foot.

> replied the little Ship, getting into the spirit of their grim little jest. > The thing that the "realistic, gritty" genre of writers generally didn't write about was the fact that, in the intensity of battle, many of the living combatants also voided their bowels. Again, it generally happened to those with a "load" in the lower intestines.

All energy was redirected toward survival. "We need more power, Captain! Bladder control? I don't think so. Sphincter control? We don't need no stinking sphincter control! Ye laddies get that energy down in the legs where we need it!"

And, as usual after battle, when the normal postcombat nausea set in, several of the young ones lost their breakfast as well.

It was going to be hard to clean up the mess, living and dead, with barely enough water to keep them alive for another few weeks. There was plenty of ships biscuit, salt pork and dried peas, but precious, precious little water.

They had been digging a well into the hill ever since their arrival. After all, if the trees were alive, they must be getting water from somewhere. They were down a hundred feet and still going through dry dirt, the walls sh.o.r.ed up with logs.

Melville smelled the reek from his own troops and looked out at the stinking heaps of their dead attackers. How were they going to clean up this filth, and return things to shipshape navy fashion? Somehow the books never talked about this. Did I miss a cla.s.s at the academy?

Actually, on his first day at the academy they told him this might happen. "Adventure," they called it. "A rendezvous with destiny."