What the fuck are they doing in this shithole?
“That bitch left home without her bra,” Hagel commented, slurring his words.
“Go tell her that,” Stubs shouted over thumping bass.
“No balls!” Bach said. He held a half glass of synthos in his prosthetic fingers.
“The fuck do I get if I do?” Hagel asked.
“Slapped,” Leone said. “Maybe laid, but…” She leaned over and scrutinized his face. “Nah, definitely slapped.”
“Drinks,” Stubs said. “I got you for the rest of the night.”
“Well, fuck, whyn’t you say so?” Hagel stood, took a bad step, and crashed into the wall. Righting himself, he marched off to earn his free drinks while his friends prepared for the inevitable fail.
In addition to the slap, he received a drink in the face and a profane berating as the woman followed him back toward the circular booth, pounding his back with fists.
“Hook me up, Stubs!” he cried, ignoring the enraged young lady.
In the next moment, a small hillock of a bouncer grabbed him by the collar from behind, spun him around toward the door, and began marching him away.
“What the fuck! Stubs, you motherfucker, you owe me drinks next—”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Rizer called to the bouncer, who ignored him. Once Stubs finger whistled, grabbing his attention, Rizer walked up to him. “Look, man, you mind letting him stay? We’ll keep him under control, I promise.”
The bouncer shook his head. “Nope. Can’t have that kinda shit in here. Goddamn guy’s gonna scare off all the ladies.”
“No way, bro,” Hagel protested. “I was just gettin’ ready to score!”
“See what I mean?”
“Here.” Rizer produced fifty credits in local paper notes and held them out. Technically worth less than Alliance crypto-credits, the primitive bills were just as valuable for being untraceable, a big plus in a Gomorrah like Darmatian.
After eyeing the bills a moment, the bouncer covertly accepted them, quickly shoving them into his pocket. “All right, he can stay.” He released Hagel. “But if he gets stupid again, you’re all getting tossed.”
“Fair enough.”
He returned Hagel to the booth, where his friends laughed uproariously at his misadventure. Pissed over Vex’s absence and Hagel’s idiocy, Rizer didn’t join them.
“What-the-fuck-ever, you assholes,” Hagel said, raising an empty glass. “I’m dry, Stubs; you know what that means.”
“Eh, shit…” Stubs signaled for a topless waitress.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, fearless leader?” Leone asked Rizer. “That was funny as shit, and you ain’t laughin’.”
“Sexual harassment at its finest!” Bach shouted in his stupor. He’d drank enough synthos to float a patrol boat.
“Just feeling a little sick,” Rizer lied. “This food is fucking gross. Gonna hit the head.”
“TMI,” Bach said.
Leone snorted. “Yeah, seriously.”
Rizer stood, turned, and came face to face with Vex.
“Oh, hello,” she said. “Going somewhere?”
“I, uh…” Rizer barely recognized her; she’d styled her hair in elaborate braids and wore fluorescent makeup.
“He was just going to take a shit,” Stubs said.
“Uh, TMI.” Vex shook her head.
“Was not.” Rizer sat back down and motioned for her to sit next to him. “Everybody, this is Vex—”
“Kasra,” said Vex. “I’m not a Marine; I use first names like a civilized person.”
Her proclamation silenced the table for a moment. Rizer found himself staring as she took a seat. She wore a silver top that appeared to be made of tiny, interlinked metallic petals and shiny black leggings that barely covered her hip bones. She looked altogether iridescent in the club’s strobing, colored lights.
“First names might work for you,” Stubs said. “But call me Stanley and I’ll strangle you.”
His comment restored the festive mood. Mark found himself drinking with Kasra and Maria, though Stubs remained Stubs. Hagel didn’t offer his name; he’d passed out on the table in a puddle of beer.
“You’re fucking serious? Your name is Ralph?” Leone asked Bach. “No wonder you can’t get laid.”
“What can I say, Marie? My mommy was a spiteful bitch.”
“It’s Maria, you stupid fuck!”
“Well, Mark, nice to properly make your acquaintance,” said Kasra. The others had gotten the point, leaving her and Mark to speak intimately. “Sorry I’m late, but I ran into a former friend on the way here. Not a great scene.”
“Fuck,” Rizer said. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, just peachy.” She slapped him on the knee “Your requisition form today read Mark A. Rizer. What does the A stand for?”
“Ahlgren, it’s an old family name.”
She nodded, then averted her gaze and looked around the bar. “This place hasn’t changed. Does the Snake Show start soon?”
“I don’t know,” Mark again lied. It began in about twenty minutes, at 2300. “We don’t really come here for that.”
“Of course not! That’s the problem with watching a snake penetrate a woman—it gets boring after you’ve seen it a few times.”
“Exactly!” Mark waved a waitress over and ordered Kasra a drink.
Small talk ensued. Mark allowed Kasra to do most of it, eager to learn more about her while trying to forget his own difficult circumstances. Twenty-eight years old, she had been employed by a defense contractor as an electronics technician since graduating a tech guild school several years before. Her job had gotten her off Andrus, a poor world with little opportunity. She had accompanied the Alliance military—first the Army, now the Marines—on deployments to other systems before landing on Verdant two years earlier.
“Hey, Rizer,” Stubs said. “Hate to interrupt but looks like some shit’s going down.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Look around,” Leone said. “Place is emptying out.”
The dance floor had been jammed when Vex arrived, but only a handful of people now gyrated beneath the strobes and whirling spotlights. Some men never grew bored of the Snake Show, yet the front rows before the stage, always packed so close to show time, were only half full. A gaggle of Marines and women, including the braless hottie and her pals, walked quickly toward the front door.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Stubs asked two Marines headed for the door, a sober man holding up a drunk.
“Bomb somewhere in town,” answered the sober one, who wore a comm visor. “Least that’s what my buddy texted.” He moved on quickly.
“Shit!” Stubs said.
“We need to get the fuck out,” Kasra said. “Cops will be everywhere, including MPs from Shaw.”
“Raid!” someone shouted.
Every Marine in the place bolted at the utterance. Holding Kasra’s hand in his panicked grip, Rizer jumped from the booth. Stubs, seated at the rear of the circular booth, upended the round table to speed his exit, sending drinks, stim caps, and barbecued rabsidar flying. Rudely awakened, Hagel tumbled to the floor, flailing his limbs and shaking his groggy head. Bach tripped over the table and fell on his face. Rizer would have helped them up under normal circumstances, but stripes and paychecks were on the line, so every man for himself.
Escape would have been easy, two minutes ago. Now a panicked mob blocked the door, everyone trying to dart, push, or punch their way out. Rizer fell in behind Stubs, who dragged Leone along, letting his bulk clear a path like a human bulldozer. With his free right arm, Stubs broke a man’s nose and knocked over several other people as they escaped. Soon they were through the door, running up the stone stairs to the street. A squad of MPs awaited, complete with hovering detention wagons to haul offenders to the brig. Fortunately most of the badges were busy subduing other Marines.
�
��Over there, dumbass!” Leone nudged Stubs while pointing to an orange hover taxi waiting down the street, the green ball atop its roof lit.
Sirens wailed. Blinking glare from red-and-blue strobe lights found its way over rooftops and around corners. Smoke reeking of chemicals hung in layers over the street.
Stubs slammed into a Marine, who reeled in a drunken stupor, then came face to face with an MP in skins.
“Halt!” he shouted while brandishing a stun baton.
Blood flew when Stubs punched him in the jaw below his half-visor, laying him out in the street. As the MP struggled to rise, another trooper stiff-armed Rizer aside to check on his partner. The MPs didn’t bother them again, opting instead to round up easier, woozier prey. They had no lack of drunks to choose from.
“Wait!” Stubs shouted to a handful of Marines who beat them to the taxi. He arrived moments later, threw Leone inside, and then climbed in.
With four jarheads crammed the back seat and two more in front, no room remained for Rizer and Vex.
“Sorry, dude.” Stubs gave an apologetic shrug.
“Go, go!” another Marine shouted at the driver. The cab sped away, one of its gullwing doors still open.
“Fuck!” Rizer hissed. More MPs poured onto the street behind them, fanning out to raid other clubs.
Vex stared down a side street at a burning building. “Oh shit.”
Siren blaring, a firetruck rounded a distant corner. Enforcement drones deployed in all directions from a hovering airship, illuminating the streets below with their powerful spotlights. Darmatian police swarmed amongst the injured and burned victims.
“Come on!” She grabbed his hand and tugged him away.
“Where are we going?”
“My hover bike. Ever ride one?”
“All the time!” He’d owned one back home, a sixteenth birthday gift from his grandfather.
“I hope so; you’re driving!”
***
Skin peeled from burn victims back in town, while Mark and Kasra howled and hollered with excitement, leaning into turns and navigating short straightaways at speeds that blurred their surroundings. They eventually arrived at an overlook atop a hill above Darmatian, the end of the road.
“Damn, you are good on a bike.” Kasra laughed as she dismounted.
“Misspent youth,” Mark answered absently, staring at the valley and the town. He watched the blinking running lights and white-hot glow of ion thrusters on freighters and heavy transports arriving and departing from the distant space port. Emergency strobes flickered in town, along with the lights atop the smokestacks at the tridinium refinery. The fire still burned. “That’s Guana Bar, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Some of the other guys were talking about going there.”
“I guess you’ll know tomorrow.” She stepped behind Mark and put an arm around him. “In the meantime, just hope they went elsewhere.”
“Yeah. You know, it’s weird how peaceful it all looks from up here, even with the fire.”
“Can’t hear it up here, the chaos or anything else in Damnation. Or back at Shaw. I come up here a lot, it relaxes me.”
“I can see why.” Even with the fire’s added glare, the city lights couldn’t eclipse the twinkling river of stars visible overhead.
She came around to stand before him, put her arms around his neck. “I’m usually solo though. I haven’t checked any peckers up here yet.” She grabbed his and squeezed hard, sending a jolt up his spine and a gallon of adrenaline into his heart. “And I think you’re a liar, Mark A. Rizer. I’m going to report you to Sergeant Barber on Monday morning, have you blackballed from the cult of tiny cocks.”
“No pun intended, right?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Their lips came softly together, a metaphorical collision that quickly escalated into a two-soul pileup. Conversation ceased, unnecessary; mouths, hands, and other bodily parts took up the slack, saying all the things inexpressible with words. Mark—and he was Mark at least for the moment—quickly found himself straddling the bike, atop Kasra, hands exploring every inch of her creamy, supple skin. They relocated to the wall at the overlook’s edge, feeling no fear of the height as they consummated in an aerobatic display of flesh the likes of which he’d never thought possible.
Their lovemaking still seemed impossible in the aftermath, far beyond what he’d experienced with other women, whom he now knew to be mere girls. He thought he’d lost his virginity five years before but now recognized his naïveté.
And just when he’d believed he might be happy for the first time in years, his same naïveté punched him in the gut at her words: “This is a bad idea.”
“What?” Mark answered, groggy, thinking he’d misheard her. He’d been dozing on and off, lying beneath her on the bike.
“This. Us. A bad idea.” She sat up, reaching for her clothes.
“What? Why?” He shot upright, confused and alarmed.
She shook her head. “Jesus, you’re not ready for this, Rizer. You’re young, practically a kid. You don’t know what you’re in for.”
“I don’t get it.” What had gone wrong in the quiet lull after their frantic romp?
“You will one day. And I’m the problem, not you. Everyone I end up with always leaves.”
“Really? And who says I will? You think I’m like the other men you’ve known?”
She met his eyes, hers catching the starlight. “No. At least not yet. I don’t want it to come to that.” She’d gotten mostly dressed.
Rizer followed suit. “Maybe it won’t. Maybe you could give me a chance. We could be friends.”
She nodded, eyes downcast and thoughtful, before looking up and offering most of a smile. “We’ll see. Your pecker checks out anyway. Now take me back to base, I need to work a few hours this morning.”
Rizer’s grandfather, the first Marine he’d ever known, had once told him, “We should be paying a bounty on women, not buying them dinner.” Always something of a romantic and a virgin at the time, Rizer hadn’t understood the old man’s words. I’m starting to get it and in a big hurry. He only hoped that full understanding would somehow elude him.
***
On Saturday, second platoon did not discuss Friday night, neither in barracks nor in Dupaul’s office when called in for individual questioning. SSgt Len wasn’t there to support them, away on leave for the week, but they didn’t need his direction to keep their mouths shut.
“Three Marines from weapons platoon are dead, and one man from first has second-degree burns over half his body,” Dupaul said. “Lance Corporal Bach, one of your Marines, is in the brig for patronizing an off-limits establishment. We’ll see what he has to say when they release him later, after he’s threatened with the very real possibility of demotion. So maybe you’d like to tell me something right now.”
Oh fuck… Rizer knew of Bach’s fate; he had been sweating all morning over what the man might admit to save his rank. “Sir, I last saw Bach at Uncle Pauly’s, which is where I was all night. If he patronized a forbidden club, I have no knowledge of it.”
Featuring an excellent beer selection and no other vices to choose from, Uncle Pauly’s was one of the two bars where they could legally drink. They always claimed to have gone there when questioned of their whereabouts in town, a reliable alibi and a standing joke.
“I don’t want to hear it so spare me. The CO and I will get to the bottom of this, mark my words. Now get out of here!”
Late in the afternoon, when the interrogations were over and the tacit all-clear given, some of Rizer’s peers began opening up. Not surprisingly, one member of Doom Squad claimed to have been in Guana Bar when the bomb exploded.
“Dude, it was a fucking party,” Stiglitz said. They sat around a table in the rec room sipping doghair beers. He shook his head, plainly perturbed. “Can’t believe it ended like that.”
“What the hell happened?” Hage
l asked.
He remembered nothing of the previous night, much to everyone’s amusement. He’d somehow escaped the raid; the MPs found him sleeping on a highway median strip and released him back to Murder Company with the charge of public drunkenness. He would face office hours Monday morning before Captain Carr. Hagel had made corporal just two weeks before. Rizer doubted the CO would take his rank over the minor offense, but he would be fined for certain and probably have his liberty restricted for a time.
“Sergeant Hunter from weapons platoon, it was his last night on Verdant,” Stiglitz said. “Great guy—he knew how to be a hard-charger without being a dick. He had a shitload of scratch saved up, blew it partying with five hookers, a pleasure bot, and any Marines who’d join him. How could I pass that up?”
“If he’s dead, why are you still here?” Leone asked. “And without a fucking scratch?”
“Don’t sound so disappointed, Miz Busybody; I’m getting to that. I was halfway to the head when the bomb went off. I got deafened and knocked right the fuck over. Couldn’t see shit but smoke and dust when I got up. I just kinda got swept along with the other people freaking and trying to get the fuck outta there. I dipped out just before the Damnation heat showed up.”
“Man, that’s some fucked-up shit.” Stubs shook his head.
“Here’s the worst part about it: Hunter was getting a blow job under the table when I left for the head. He didn’t even get to blow his last load.”
Rizer shrugged. “Still not a bad way to go, whether he finished or not.”
“Fuck yeah,” Stubs said. “If I have to die on this shitty world, that’s how I want to go.”
Nobody laughed, and the somber mood grew downright morose when Leone asked, “What about Bach? You think he’ll rat us out?”
Shit, this again? “Nah,” Rizer said, “Bach’s okay, and he knows we’d fucking kill him.”
He said it to reassure his friends; in truth, he wasn’t so certain. Bach was as fearless in combat as any Marine and bore the scars to prove it. Still, does battlefield courage translate to character? Rizer almost shook his head. When had character become the ability to lie to their CO during office hours? We broke the rules. They’re there for a reason. That exact reason had killed several Marines. And could have killed us if we’d chosen the wrong bar.
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