By now, every sophont in the room had managed to grasp that something dreadfully wrong had happened—that fact was probably within the intellectual grasp of the pea-sized AI that regulated the water level in the toilets. Likewise, even the dullest-witted recruit’s eyes had managed to trace the damning chain of evidence that led from the general’s ruined dress uniform to the odoriferous bucket in Thumper’s hands. In fact, it slowly dawned on Thumper that every eye in the barracks was staring directly at him.
“I didn’t do it,” he managed to sputter as Sergeant Pitbull advanced toward him, mayhem in his eyes. But by then it was way too late.
Chapter Six
Journal #675
Who among us does not take pleasure in the discomfort of our enemies? Such is common wisdom, noted by many observers.
It is less frequently observed that, by choosing one’s enemies with a degree of care, one can significantly increase the number of occasions on which to enjoy the pleasure of seeing them discommoded. In fact, it is likely that infelicitous choice of rivals is the cause of more frustration than almost any other miscalculation. This is as true in business as in those more personal areas of human enterprise.
The subtleties of the matter are clearly illustrated by the fact that my employer, despite his lack of any salient qualities that might warn off a calculating opponent, had over and over turned unpromising situations to his own advantage and frustrated the hopes of those arrayed against him. In fact, so improbable were his victories, that the defeated party was often inclined to step right up to make another attempt at besting him. But almost inevitably, the outcome of the first encounter was only repeated in the return engagement.
That didn’t stop his would-be enemies from coming back for more …
* * *
It was 5:00 PM Galactic Standard Time on Lorelei. But it might as well have been 5:00 AM—or high noon, for all the difference it made in the casinos that were the economic lifeblood of the resort satellite. The casinos were open twenty-four hours, and there was no time of day or night when the brightly lit gaming tables or banks of quantum slot machines were without a full quorum of bettors. Even the exotic potted plants lining the hallways of the Fat Chance Casino got twenty-four-hour attention from the throng of gardeners and housekeepers who filed unobtrusively but efficiently through every public space of the hotel and casino—watering, trimming, cleaning up.
“What games are you going to play?” Lola stared suspiciously at Ernie. She’d intercepted him on the way to the Fat Chance Casino cashier’s window to purchase gambling chips.
“Poker’s got the best odds, the way I see it,” said Ernie, shrugging. “The house just takes a percentage of every pot, and the winner keeps everything else. I figure I can swindle most of the bozos that end up at the poker table here—and beat ’em at cards, too.”
“Don’t get too creative—if they catch you cheating, you’re on the next shuttle off the station,” Lola reminded him. She took him by the arm and led him along one of the central aisles through one of the casino’s middle-priced gaming rooms. Working their way through the overflowing crowds were cocktail waitresses, dispensing free drinks to the gamblers—a time-honored strategy for increasing the amount wagered. A significant majority of the gamblers were taking the bait, guzzling down the drinks (and free eats) as if they were at a permanent party. Some were undoubtedly shills, encouraging the real customers to act as if the party would never end. And here and there, casino guards in the black uniform of the Space Legion served as silent reminders who owned this casino—and what would happen to anyone caught cheating.
Lola stopped and turned to face Ernie. “Remember, you’re playing it straight today. If casino security comes down on you, it’s your butt that’s on the grill—I don’t know you, and I’m not helping you. Got it? So don’t go screwing up this job just as it’s getting started. Especially considering what’s likely to happen to us if we mess up this time …”
“Don’t worry, kid, I’ll play it close to the vest,” said Ernie, grumpily. He waved vaguely toward the nearby blackjack tables. “We gotta have enough spare bucks to keep ourselves flush …”
“And we have to keep from losing what little we have,” said Lola, stopping and turning to face him. She grasped him by the lapels, and said firmly, “Your budget for today is fifty dollars …”
“Fifty lousy bucks!” Ernie grumbled. “That’s barely enough to get into a decent game!”
“Build it up enough, and you’ll have more tomorrow,” said Lola. “No sucker bets, nothing that’ll get you busted by Casino security. We’ve got to keep ourselves afloat long enough to get the job done—because if we don’t get it done, we’re really sunk. You remember Mr. V, don’t you?”
“All right, I get you,” said Ernie. “Fifty bucks it is. By the time I’m done, it oughta be three-four hundred.”
Lola smiled, and said, “Good, and if it is, you get to keep half your winnings to play with tomorrow. Now, excuse me—I’m going to go snooping.” She gave him a punch on the biceps and turned toward the high-rollers’ section of the casino. Odds were, if their quarry was anywhere on the casino floor, it would be there, where the action was fastest and most furious. Lola’s step quickened—even she could feel the excitement.
There were a pair of guards in Legion uniform flanking the doorway to the elite playing area, but Lola whisked right past them. The casino didn’t discourage gawkers in this section, as long as they didn’t interfere with the play and didn’t linger an unseemly long time. The way Lola was dressed, they weren’t likely to single her out—not that they seemed to be enforcing any dress code at all in this section. It wasn’t unknown for someone dressed like a day laborer to enter one of the Lorelei casinos and plop down a grease-stained paper sack that turned out to be filled with thousand-dollar bills.
There was an even more private area for those upper-class gamblers who insisted on playing their games out of the sight of the common rabble—but she wasn’t interested in them. She was after Willard Phule—and he wasn’t going to hide from the paying customers. As she knew from her previous visit to the casino, he spent as much of his time as possible accessible to the patrons. She’d even seen him with his Port-a-Brain set up on a bar table, working where he’d be visible to the players, rather than anonymously in some back office.
But it didn’t take more than a glance to eliminate the possibility that he was in this area. The only Legion uniforms in sight were the pair of guards at each end of the room, visible but unobtrusive. Everyone else in the room was in the casual garb of rich people on holiday—a range that ran from the garish display of the self-made to the tastefully drab leisurewear affected by Old Money.
Then Lola did a double take. To one side was a lean man pumping tokens into a bank of quantum slot machines. That was completely off the expected pattern. The high rollers had their own preferred games—obsolete games like roulette and baccarat were their style, rather than the faster-moving, high-tech games that predominated in the outer rooms. Never mind that the odds on the elite games were heavily stacked in the house’s favor. The very rich enjoyed the risk, and they were willing to pay to be seen playing the more prestigious games. But slots were utterly déclassé—there was almost no pretense of skill to them, and even less of elegance. So why, suddenly, were there slots here in the high-priced area of the casino?
Then Lola peered more closely at the man playing the slots. There was something familiar about that face … She was ready to move in for a closer look when she noticed the compactly built man always hovering close by the slot player, never so close as to be obvious or obtrusive, but to her experienced eye, unmistakably a bodyguard—and he was looking at Lola. She favored the guard with an embarrassed smile, then glanced away, pretending to misunderstand the reason for his interest. It was a ploy that worked with most men; she hoped this guard wasn’t too professional. But her curiosity was definitely piqued; who was the man he was guarding? She shuffled through her mental datab
ase of faces, trying to place him without another glance that might alert the guard to the real reason for her interest.
For the moment, she couldn’t quite place him. But she was sure there was something important going on. Sooner or later she’d figure it out. And then she’d figure out how she could turn it to her profit. In the meantime, she might as well continue her search for Phule at the twenty-four-hour free lunch spread …
* * *
“Here are your overnight messages, sir,” said Moustache, bringing a small handful of printouts to Phule’s desk.
“Great,” said Phule, his face lighting up. “Anything from Legion headquarters?’
“I don’t believe there’s anything out of the usual, sir,” said Moustache, crisply. By now he knew—everyone on the base knew—that the captain was expecting a promotion. He also knew that the promotion had yet to materialize, despite several months having elapsed since the first rumors of it had reached Omega Company at its Zenobia Base. He wondered whether it might not be time for someone to tell the captain not to pin his hopes on something that evidently was stalled deep in the bowels of the Legion bureaucracy—most likely on General Blitzkrieg’s desk. Perhaps it was; but Moustache couldn’t find it in his heart to break the news.
Phule’s face fell momentarily, but he quickly regained his composure and returned to business. “Any report from the team investigating last night’s incident?”
“None yet, sir,” said Moustache, standing at attention. He could have been modeling for a Legion recruiting poster, so perfect was the stance. “They’ve got a fair bit of territory to cover, though. Most likely it’ll turn out to be some local wildlife we haven’t seen before.”
Phule tapped his fingers on the desktop. “Likely enough,” he conceded. “Funny we haven’t seen it before, though, if that’s what it is. We have guards out every night, and nobody’s reported moving lights before.”
“That could be readily explained if the phenomenon were seasonal, sir,” Beeker pointed out. “We’ve not been here an entire local year yet, so we’ve hardly had sufficient opportunity to observe all the phases of the indigenous fauna.”
“True enough,” said Phule. “But Flight Leftenant Qual didn’t seem to know of any animal that might be causing it, either.”
“Duly noted, sir,” said Beeker. “However, Mr. Qual is a military person by profession, not a naturalist. Nor is he native to this region of his planet. He may be no more familiar with its denizens than we are.”
“I guess that makes sense,” said Phule. “Still, I’d be happier if we got some kind of definitive result from our search. If we don’t, I may have to station a team out in the desert after dark, to see what they can find out. And I don’t like doing that when I don’t know whether I’m putting them in danger.”
Moustache said, “Sir, if I may comment.” He paused briefly, and at Phule’s nod continued. “If whatever made those lights is dangerous, there is no reason to think it’s any less so in broad daylight. If our search team finds nothing today, I myself would not hesitate to send them out again at night. The camp’s safety is an overriding issue, sir.”
“Thank you, Moustache, the point’s well-taken,” said Phule. He stood up and paced, thinking, then turned, and said, “In fact, I think we ought to plan for that. First …”
He was interrupted by the buzz of his wrist communicator. “Yes, Mother, what is it?”
“Code Red, sweetie,” came the familiar voice, with an edge of urgency Phule hadn’t heard before.
“Code Red?” he asked, feeling stupid. “But that means …”
Mother’s answer removed any doubt. “The desert search team is under attack!”
* * *
“ALL RIGHT, YOU SLOBS, COME GET YER ASSIGNMENTS TO YER NEW UNITS,” bellowed Sergeant Pitbull. He waved a thick sheaf of regulation Legion envelopes in his hand, presumably one for each of the recruits in his platoon.
The recruits came to their feet in an excited babble of voices. This was the moment they’d all been waiting for—the next step in their Legion careers. It meant, for one thing, that the recruits would now go on to the specialized training they’d requested when they’d joined the Legion, rather than an endless round of body building exercises and mindless drills under Pitbull’s relentless eye. In fact, for most of them, just getting away from Pitbull was sufficient cause for celebration. Whatever else Legion life held for them, it was likely to be an improvement over basic training.
Thumper rose to his feet without particular enthusiasm. Whatever camaraderie he’d felt for his fellow recruits had vanished when he’d realized what had happened to him during General Blitzkrieg’s inspection visit. Somebody had deliberately set him up to take the blame for the insult to the general—possibly more than one somebody had set him up, in fact. He’d spent a long time trying to plead his innocence, and a longer time in a punishment detail. He suspected that only his perfect record in all the exercises leading up to the incident with the general had kept him from being drummed out of the Legion then and there. But Sergeant Pitbull had made it amply clear that the consequences were far from over. And one of those consequences was almost certainly going to be reflected in his first assignment. Now, it looked as if there was no chance for him to end up in the elite unit he’d requested upon enlistment
Pitbull read each recruit’s name and their assignments as he handed them their letters. “POPPER—FORT KABOOM,” he barked. Popper, a dumpy, shortsighted humanoid from Tau Ceti IV, beamed—ever since he’d arrived in camp, he’d been talking about how much he enjoyed blowing things up. Now, at the Legion’s demolitions training school, he’d get a chance to do it on a grand scale.
“SPIDER—YOU’RE ON TEAM REGULUS,” said Pitbull. That was a good assignment, too, and fit Spider’s personality. Team Regulus was the Legion’s Home Guard unit, sharing ceremonial duties at Alliance Headquarters with elite groups from the Regular Army and Starfleet. The assignment had more to do with spit and polish than with fighting ability, but that made it all the more a plum for many legionnaires.
Several of the recruits were sent to advanced training in various behind-the-lines specialties, but at least half of them went to advanced combat training with frontline units. This was the core of the Legion’s mission, of course, and Thumper had nurtured hopes, even after the disaster with General Blitzkrieg, of getting into an outfit where he could prove his worth again from the ground up—despite the fact that, as far as he knew, there were no ongoing wars anywhere in Alliance territory in which to display his martial prowess.
After most of the names had been read, Thumper began to suspect that Pitbull was saving his name for last—he’d seen him shuffle through the envelopes, obviously picking the order in which he wanted to announce assignments. This was annoying, but there was nothing Thumper could really do about it. Until the recruits were placed on a transport ship to their new units, Pitbull was still their immediate superior and could order them around as he saw fit. Being a drill instructor, he usually saw fit to do so in the most sadistic way possible. This batch of recruits would soon be gone from Mussina’s World and Legion boot camp forever—or so they devoutly hoped. But Pitbull wasn’t about to pass up his final opportunity to torture and humiliate them.
Finally, the last envelope was in the sergeant’s hand. He grinned crookedly and held it up to the light. By now, all the recruits were aware whose envelope it was, and curiosity was even stronger than their excitement over their own assignments. Pitbull waited for silence, then announced with a flourish: “THUMPER—OMEGA COMPANY!”
“Omega Company?” Thumper was stunned. As short a time as they’d been in the Legion, all the recruits had heard rumors about Omega Company. Once the dumping ground for all the misfits and malcontents of the Legion, it had been taken over by a new commander, who reportedly had turned it around. Omega Company was in the news; in this boring interval between real fighting action, it was getting sent to interesting places. It was exactly the sort of assignment
Thumper had hoped for. “Excuse me, Sergeant, is that correct?”
“YER *%!!@#-A IT’S CORRECT, RECRUIT!” Pitbull roared. “THE GENERAL INSISTED ON IT, AND THAT’S RIGHT WHERE YOUR SORRY ASS IS GOIN’! THAT CONCLUDES THE ASSIGNMENTS! AS YOU WERE, YOU SLOBS! DON’T LET ME CATCH ANYBODY GOOFING OFF—I CAN STILL HAND OUT PUNISHMENT DETAIL!” And Pitbull turned on his heel and stalked away.
* * *
“Under attack?” Suddenly Phule’s adrenaline began to surge, and the focus of his attention narrowed to a pinpoint. “Attack by whom? Can you patch them through to me?”
“I couldn’t hear who the attackers were,” said Mother. “All I got was a message from the team saying that somebody—or something—was attacking them. There was a lot of noise, but I couldn’t tell exactly what was happening. The signal keeps breaking up, and I don’t think they have a whole lot of time to chat with us, anyway. But hold on. I’ll see if I can raise them again and put you through.”
“I’ll be ready,” said Phule. He became aware that he was on his feet, although he had no memory of rising from his desk chair. In the corridor outside his office, he could hear the sound of running feet. “Meanwhile, sound General Quarters,” he ordered. “I want every available member of the company ready to go bail them out.” He turned to Moustache and Beeker, who had both heard the entire conversation. “Sergeant, get a relief party together without delay. I’ll give you your orders as soon as I know what needs to be done. Beeker, grab me those stereoculars—we’re going out to see if we can spot anything.”
“Yes, sir!” said the two men, practically in unison, but Phule was already out the doorway, running at top speed. Turning to a shelf just behind the captain’s desk, Beeker picked the stereoculars in their case and followed him out the door, a step behind Moustache. Somewhere down the corridor an alarm was sounding.
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