“This does not leave us helpless however. In lieu of receiving reinforcements, we need to concentrate on improving efficiency in our operations, and that begins with intel. I would like some local perspective, particularly in reference to an operation the other day in the town of Pax carried out by the 123rd. Colonel Chord, who is your S-2 officer?”
“Lieutenant Appelman, sir.”
Appelman, not twenty-five years old from the look of him, stood and gulped nervously, as if he were trying to swallow an apple.
“Lieutenant, I have yet to feel the fallout from this operation, yet I doubt very highly that commandant and council will be pleased to hear that nearly an entire town was destroyed to save a dump truck and a downed tank. It was—you’ll pardon my dockside vernacular—something of a goatfuck.”
Appelman gulped. “Yes, sir.”
“Colonel, I assume your S-2 briefed you on the situation and enemy numbers before you decided that one platoon was sufficient to carry out the mission?”
“He did, sir.”
“Yet the operation obviously warranted a larger force. Explain your gross underestimation of the enemy’s strength, lieutenant.”
Appelman cleared his throat, swallowed. “Sir, local intelligence in the Verdant Guard informed me that there were few insurgents in the vicinity of Pax. It initially appeared to be a routine recovery operation, sir.”
“Yet our forces wound up facing far greater numbers, so many that air support was required and most of the town destroyed, causing millions of credits worth of collateral damage. On top of that, eight Marines were killed along with twice that number in casualties. And all due to faulty intelligence.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hella let him stand there and steep in his nervousness for several seconds. “Was this the first time you received poor intel from your source?”
“No, sir.”
“And yet you keep going back to it. That is unacceptable, lieutenant; in fact, it’s downright incompetent. By rights your CO should hang a poor fitness report around your neck, which could well ruin your career. But in light of your inexperience, I’m willing to give you a second chance. You will submit a report on the new procedures you’ll devise to better vet local intel sources for authenticity, along with your plan to cultivate new and more reliable sources. One copy to your CO, the second to myself, on our desks by seventeen-hundred tomorrow. Are you clear on your orders, lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who gave you such poor information?”
“Major Gerhard, Verdant Guard, sir.”
“I want him brought here immediately—I’ll question him before I leave. Send him the message, lieutenant. And if he isn’t here by fifteen hundred, send the MPs to retrieve him on my order.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“You are dismissed.”
Appelman departed with wings on his heels. That’s my first and final act of forgiveness today. Take the lesson from it, kid.
He considered the name Major Gerhard. Yes, I remember. General Rieve wrote a glowing report on him, something to the effect of, “Major Gerhard is one of my most trustworthy men, an experienced and dedicated intelligence man with innumerable and reliable sources.” Yeah, and he’ll be in irons if he tries to bullshit me.
As for the rest of his officers, Rieve had offered up one battalion XO and one company commander as having potential Union ties. Hella figured they were scapegoats, scratch-offs from Rieve’s shit list. Both had been questioned, denying everything, and were presently incarcerated for the duration of operations. I’d put Rieve in irons too if I could get away with it. Alas, Turner and Hoffman had turned up nothing on Rieve or Governor Misawa, though they still had men digging.
Hella wagged a finger between the two remaining S-2 officers. “I’ll hear your reports now regarding enemy strength and positions in the area. We’ll start with you…” Hella craned his neck to read the man’s name tape. “Captain Bloch.”
Roughly two minutes later, Hella cut off Bloch. “Stop. Just stop right now, I’ve heard enough. What about you, Captain Smith?” he asked the final S-2 at the table. “Are your figures roughly the same as Bloch’s?”
“Yes, sir.”
Red-faced and livid, Hoffman spoke up: “At least half of your figures and locations don’t jibe with ours. You two have some explaining to do. This is a goddamn mess out here!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Hella said. “You two will be recalled this evening after I meet with Major Gerhard. In the meantime, I suggest you get with young Lieutenant Appelman, consult your maps, and recrunch your numbers. There are some sadly mistaken intel men at this table, and I’m not speaking of General Hoffman and Admiral Turner.”
“You two better get this shit show back on the rails,” Brox practically growled. “Or you’re gonna wind up as hotel detectives. One more screwup and I’m taking scalps. Now get on it!”
“Dismissed,” Hella said. Now let’s see if my commanders know where their own men are.
Fortunately for them, they did. Hella sat through their reports without interrupting. They had earned rank enough to keep his ear, solid men overall. The COs confirmed what Hella had noticed in reports: a general uptick in enemy operations with better coordination between insurgent forces and increased sophistication in tactics. Heavier weapons, larger-scale ambushes, and more advanced armor had replaced the simple sniper attacks and pestering IEDs they had previously relied on encountering.
In all of their reports, one repetitive and irritating phrase stuck out—mine guard.
How can we counter if our battalions aren’t at full strength? Hella let out an exasperated breath before speaking. “So, four platoons altogether, basically two companies out of twelve, are currently assigned to guarding Babcock-Mauer’s mines? Is that correct?” After the colonels confirmed, he asked, “On whose orders?”
“Wilcox and Hedley, sir,” answered Gleicher, commander of 41st Battalion. “As per HQMC order, we are to assist in guarding mines and convoys for defense contractors.”
Oh, is that what we’re calling mercenaries now? He nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I am aware, colonel. The convoys are a given, but the mines are usually guarded by those contractors. How long has this been going on?”
“Roughly a week, sir.”
“Which begs the question of where the mercs went.”
“BM is currently expanding operations on this side of the moon, sir,” Turner answered. “I believe they’re likely engaged in securing new territory. Vulcan Mining is doing the same in 79th Div’s sector.”
Evicting civilians, in other words. While my units bleed from lack of bodies.
Hella could take no more. “That ceases today. I’ll inform BM and Vulcan that we are recalling all of our men from guarding their mines, damn the order and the consequences. The council probably won’t stand for it, but that is my order. Expect your units back by tomorrow evening.”
Naturally, this greatly pleased his commanders. For the next half hour Hella took their questions. Every answer he gave sounded either hollow or incomplete. I can confirm nothing; every goddamn thing is up to the council and BM. His head ached by the time he dismissed them; his upcoming meeting with intelligence man Major Gerhard would likely inflame it to a migraine.
“Please excuse me, gentlemen,” he said to his staff officers. “I’d like to be alone for a while to prepare for Major Gerhard.”
All departed save for Rocco, who continued typing on his holo-computer, always a step ahead of the general’s business. Hella stared at vid screens on the wall displaying current Marine positions and intel reports on the enemy. He had hoped to find answers during the meeting that would solve his tactical and personnel dilemmas, some bit of information he might not have considered, but nothing had been revealed.
He closed his eyes for a moment, rubbed his aching temples with his fingers before he spoke. “You ever disobey an order when you were a grunt, Rocco?”
“Seve
ral times, sir,” he responded. “When I thought it would save my men while still accomplishing the mission.”
“It shouldn’t have to come to that, goddamn it.” He shook his head. “Maybe it’s just a delusional memory, but I don’t recall the Corps operating like this when I started out.”
“Neither do I, sir. But with all due respect, I think we both know how it was, or at least we do now. Back then we didn’t have need to know.”
“Perhaps,” Hella said, somewhat dismissively, though he silently acknowledged that Rocco made a good point. “We’ve always been an extension of the political arm, right or wrong, and therefore a tool of the corporations that fund it. But I don’t recall being commissioned as a goddamn police force. Door kickers, sure—but then we moved on and let their people handle it. Now we’re supposed to do it all. With practically nothing. Care to hazard a guess on how many major combat theaters the Corps is engaged in right now?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Eight I believe, sir, though only Silex is on this scale, and that’s mostly the Army’s show.”
Hella chuckled. “I knew I couldn’t get one past you. Do you remember operations on such a scale before? The Corps being spread so thin in so many places?”
“No, sir.”
“We have always been tasked to do more with less, which I can grudgingly accept. But being assigned a simple mission, only to be burdened by laughable rules of engagement, commitments to corporations who don’t give a damn about our people—it’s too much to ask. All those men in the aid stations, broken for good, all to boost someone’s bottom line.” He shook his head, then said softly, “It just doesn’t seem worth it.”
After a few moments of pondering, Rocco said, “Sir, I would love to agree, but my stars haven’t come in the mail yet.”
Hella laughed. A horrible joke and yet the most amusing thing he’d heard in weeks. “Hell, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this anyway.”
“Well, if you have to tell someone, sir, it might as well be me. I have nothing to gain by repeating our conversation.”
“Neither does anyone else—it’s nothing I haven’t said in so many words to the council, several times. But at least you’re not deaf.”
CHAPTER 23
“Armor master circuit board,” muttered Barber, a stocky sergeant with a purple, misshapen nose. He tapped keys on a holo-computer. “One-twenty-third…? Yeah, it’s ready. Hold on a second.” He disappeared into the warren of shelves behind the counter at electro-maintenance services.
Take your time. Rizer had nothing to do but wait. It was a Friday, and all of Murder Company was in garrison, a rarity. To reward his men for their tenacity and professionalism during countless patrols in recent weeks, Murder’s CO Captain Carr had ordered early liberty call at 1300. Busy work was the plan of the short day, and Rizer had no desire to pace around the cleaning tables at the armory, looking over his team’s shoulders as they scrubbed weapons that were already spotless.
The wall clock read 0845. Footsteps sounded as Rizer pondered the most efficient ways to waste the next four hours until liberty call. “You here for the master board?” asked a female voice that snapped him from his shirking thoughts.
Rizer’s lips parted to speak, yet he stood dumbstruck at the sight of Vex, the woman he’d embarrassed himself in front of months before at the chow hall. He’d thought of her many times in the aftermath, the instances becoming infrequent over time, for he hadn’t seen her since. She hadn’t changed at all, still clad in grease-smudged coveralls, her dirty blond hair hanging lank and stringy. He hadn’t forgotten her face, yet he didn’t remember it being so beautifully crafted, her features divinely assembled from brow to chin in just the fashion to suit him.
“Yes? No? Maybe?” Vex held up the master board. A downturned corner of her mouth betrayed irritation. She doubtless had little time to waste on Marines who couldn’t remember why they had come to her shop.
“Uh, yeah,” Rizer finally said, “that’s what I’m here for.”
She looked at him with blue eyes, luminous in the shop’s dim and grimy confines. “You sure? One-Twenty-Third Battalion?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m sure.” Rizer followed up with a nervous laugh.
She put the board on the counter, cocked her head slightly, and stared at him. “I’ve seen you somewhere before, right?”
Rizer smiled. She remembers! Kind of… He didn’t want her remembering his fumble however. Play it cool. “Yeah, we uh… talked at the chow hall one day. But it was a while back.”
Her mouth parted slowly into an O that turned to a smile. She laughed, the sound like ice cubes tinkling in a glass. “Oh, I remember. You have the friend with the funny name and the tiny cock!”
Rizer laughed along as his guts knotted into chain links. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend.”
“Guilt by association. You two aren’t in some kind of small-cock brotherhood, are you?”
The question took him aback. The girls he remembered from high school and college weren’t nearly so bawdy. Not by half. And if the Corps had taught him anything other than killing, it was how to be crude. He smiled. “We like to think of ourselves as a cult.” When her laughter rose to a cackle, he leaned closer across the counter and whispered in a conspiratorial fashion, “Our enemies like to send these hot girls around to get our little dicks in an uproar, only to laugh at us when we finally whip them out. It’s really embarrassing, like pecker persecution.”
His final two words doubled her over with laughter. “That’s fucking hilarious!”
“Stop it! A micro-phallus is not a joke; it’s a severe genetic disorder and… Wait a minute, you’re one of them! A pecker checker!”
Barber stuck his purple nose out between shelves, their laughter and conversation having drawn his attention. “What the hell’s going on here? Stop wasting the tech’s time, corporal; don’t you have shit to do elsewhere?”
Vex turned, gave him a mocking snort. “What’s it to you? Get lost; I got him his board.”
“Yeah, thanks, Vex, no wonder I couldn’t find the fucking thing. Say something next time.” Barber scowled at Rizer, ready to say something more, but retreated back into the aisles.
“That sergeant, by the way,” Rizer whispered, “he’s our leader.”
She guffawed some more. “I can vouch for that. He’s pissed you’re trying to perpetrate.”
Rizer stepped back in faux astonishment. “Are you implying I’ve joined the cult under false pretenses?”
“I don’t know… but there appears to be concrete evidence.” She glanced at the pig-iron bar visible through his jumpsuit. “The pecker checkers might be disappointed.”
“This is just an armored prosthesis I wear for my protection.”
“And how can I be certain of that?”
“Visual inspection—it’s the only way. I can’t show you right away, but, uh, maybe I’ll be easier after a few drinks tonight. Say around twenty-two hundred?”
She stared at him for several moments, so long that Rizer was certain he would go down in flames. “I don’t get out much, but sure, why not? Where are we going?”
“The Green Viper.” Rizer had already made plans to go with several others from his platoon.
“Ah, the home of the Snake Show. How appropriate.”
***
The Marines referred to Darmatian as Damnation, a name that belied their true feelings for the town, a paradise for young, single enlisted soldiers, and also some of the married ones. As on most frontier worlds, a host of establishments catered to the vice and entertainment needs of the miners, spacers, mercenaries, and military. Most of the many bars featured nude dancers both human and android, and bore such names as The Bloody Bucket, Pour Jarheads’ Pub, and Sensor Ship, the last a strip club with an all-android staff of perfect 10s. Hustlers abounded at the holo-pool and card tables, while thugs awaited in the alleys to fleece the drunken, straggling sheep of whatever
might be left in their pockets. Due to alleged security risks, most of the popular bars and brothels were off limits to Marines by order of General Hella.
Rizer found it ridiculous that a Marine could risk his life on patrol yet not on his own time. With the exception of Lt Dupaul, most everyone gaffed off the regulation, though the price for disobedience could be steep. Raids by MPs weren’t uncommon. When they happened, a Marine could do nothing but run like hell and hope for a strong tailwind.
The time was now 2225, and no sign of Vex. Rizer was glad he hadn’t told his friends that he was meeting someone. Too good to be true. He shook his head, had another swallow of what passed for beer, and considered picking at the cooling platter of expensive rabsidar meat on the table, allegedly spiced with a pinch of snake venom. Rizer didn’t know whether to believe the claim, but the roasted rabsidar was indeed spicy, its flavor similar to pork. Glasses of alcohol and stim capsules covered their table.
Stubs picked up a stim capsule, held it to his wrist, and squeezed, injecting a tiny jet of the drug into his bloodstream. Rizer had used stim capsules before—they were common throughout the galaxy—but the stim capsules’ trippy effects had never agreed with him. Experts claimed that stims had no ill side effects, but he’d known students who basically withered away in their rooms from near-constant use of the various capsules available.
So Rizer preferred the buzz of alcohol despite the inevitable hangover.
“Check out those three,” said Leone, sitting on Stubs’ lap. They’d been banging pretty much since the day she’d arrived. Rizer thought them a good match—both were all muscle, scribbled over with tattoos—though he didn’t consider their pairing a relationship. Neither did they.
Rizer followed her pointing finger to three young women who had descended into the Green Viper Lounge, a cellar bar where the dancers wore nothing but serpents. The three dressed in the slutty outfits typical of club-going women everywhere, but Rizer picked out the finer details in their clothing, styled hair, and jewelry that marked them as upper middle class, at least on Verdant. One of them, with skin the color of teak and jet-black hair curling down to her ass, made the other two look like bland mannequins. Her dark, hard nipples showed prominently beneath her translucent top, which Rizer realized was a projection rather than actual fabric.
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