Recoil

by David Sherman

  “Sir?” Szilk asked, confused.

  Indrus tapped a command into his console and his office door silently closed. “This isn’t to be repeated,” he told his G3. “I wasn’t on the need-to-know list, but I’ve known about the Skinks for a few years now. Someone who is on the list realized that, since one of my FISTs had made contact with the Skinks on two different occasions, I should know about them. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but I was sworn to absolute secrecy.”

  “One of our FISTs has had contact with hostile aliens?” Szilk said, shocked. “I had no idea.”

  Indrus nodded. “A platoon from Thirty-fourth FIST was the first—the first that we know of. That was on Society 437. That religious war on Kingdom a couple of years ago?” The general shook his head. “It wasn’t about religion, it was against an alien invader—the Skinks the president just announced. Thirty-fourth FIST went in to deal with what was reported to be sectarian violence and found a strong alien force. They needed assistance, and Twenty-sixth FIST was sent to help them.

  “Over the years, there have been unexplained disappearances of small military units and nongovernmental explorers. The thinking now is that at least some of them may have run into the Skinks. Anyway, the Skinks are why Society 437 hasn’t been colonized, even though it seems an ideal choice.” He cocked his head. “Do you know that those two FISTs are quarantined?” When Szilk shook his head, Indrus said, “That was to keep knowledge of the Skinks from getting out. They were threatened with Darkside if they told anybody about the aliens. As far as that goes, everybody who has knowledge of the Skinks faces a Darkside penalty for divulgence—as does everybody unauthorized who learns of them. Or did, I should say.” He lifted the flimsy Szilk had placed on his desk. “But now it’s

  public knowledge.”

  “Kali’s bloody arms,” Szilk whispered. “I had no idea.”

  “If my G3 didn’t know, that tells me security was as tight as it should be.” Indrus looked back to the reports he’d been reviewing. “And now it seems the Skinks are back,” he said softly, “and we sent two lone Force Recon squads to face them.”

  “If that’s the case,” Szilk said, “those Marines have no idea what they’re facing.”

  “They need intelligence and help,” Indrus said, nodding.

  “I believe the first thing they need is to launch those Global Trekker satellites Haulover has,” Szilk said.

  “Get a drone message off to Mullilee ordering the launch. And my compliments to Admiral Marsallas requesting he dispatch a warship to Haulover posthaste to install a string-of-pearls. And make an appointment for me to see him at his earliest convenience.” Admiral Marsallas was commander in chief of the Confederation Navy’s Fourth Fleet, also headquartered on Halfway.

  “Aye aye.” Szilk began to leave Indrus’s office, but turned back at the door. “Should I notify Thirty-fourth FIST to stand up?”

  “Thirty-fourth FIST, and the rest of Fourth Force Recon.”

  CNSS Broward County, at a Jump Point in Interstellar Space

  Staying awake on the bridge of the destroyer escort CNSS Broward County at midwatch was not an easy thing to do. The lights were dimmer than during other watches and the only sounds were the pings and blips of the instruments, and occasional murmured voices. On other watches, the crowded bodies on the bridge could keep a sleepy sailor awake. On midwatch, Bosun’s Mate First Tigure Sean saw to it that the duty officers and sailors remained awake and alert. The junior petty officers and sailors under him said that was because he was bucking for chief. Many of the starship’s officers thought Sean would make a fine chief petty officer, and a couple had already written endorsements to go as attachments with the captain’s recommendation for his promotion.

  So nobody on the bridge was surprised when PO1 Sean was the first to notice the blip: “Jugo, that pip looks like a drone. Bring it up.”

  Radioman Third Class Eric Jugo blinked at the display in front of him and belatedly saw the blip Sean had noticed from across the bridge. His fingers almost tripped over themselves from his embarrassment as they danced over the controls to bring the blip into sharp focus and get data on it.

  “You’re right, First, it’s a drone.” He blinked again when he finished reading the data, and glanced over his shoulder at Ensign Hedly Tallulah, the watch officer, then looked at Sean. “It’s addressed to ‘any Confederation Navy starship.’ ”

  Sean merely nodded, but he thought, Very interesting.

  “Give me the azimuth, range, and vector,” Tallulah ordered crisply. If he picked up on the significance of “any Confederation Navy starship,” he gave no sign.

  Jugo rattled off the numbers. Tallulah made a quick calculation for an intercept vector and gave the orders to engineering that put the starship on course to retrieve the drone.

  Navy starships on cruise were allowed to go wherever in their sectors their captains chose. But they were out of communications with Fleet when they were out on their own, or even as part of a task force. So starships were assigned specific times to be at specific jump points in order to meet drones that might carry alterations in orders, and often also personal messages from family, friends, or other associates for the officers and crew of the starship. On arrival at the designated jump point, the drones broadcast identifying data that included the name of the starship they were for. A drone addressed to “any Confederation Navy starship” usually meant an emergency, and quite possibly combat was in the offing for the next warship to arrive at the jump point.

  It took fourteen hours, standard, for the Broward County to intercept the drone and bring it aboard. Even though he wasn’t on bridge duty when the drone’s message reached the bridge, Bosun’s Mate First Sean made sure he was present when it did; he was very curious about this “any Confederation Navy starship” message. He wondered if it had anything to do with that news report he’d seen just as the ship was undocking to begin this cruise. All he’d gotten was a glance at the headline, but he thought it had said something about hostile space aliens.

  A smile creased the face of Lieutenant Commander Aladdin Bhimbetka, captain of the Broward County, as he read the message. He didn’t show it to anyone while he spent a moment in thought. Then he picked up his microphone and keyed it to all compartments and pressed the bosun’s key.

  A whistle piped throughout the ship, followed by a carefully modulated female voice saying, “Now hear this, all hands, now hear this,” followed by another whistle.

  “This is the captain speaking,” Bhimbetka said into the mike when the whistle had finished. “We have just received new orders. The Broward County is ordered to proceed at flank speed to a world called Haulover. There is an unidentified hostile force on Haulover. We are to lay our string-of-pearls to assist the Marines already planetside in locating the base of said hostile force. We will intercept and either capture or destroy any spaceships or starships we discover that belong to said hostile force. We will conduct other operations as required in support of the Confederation Marines planetside, and to the civilian authorities in conjunction with support of the Marines.”

  He finished drily, “I do not anticipate declaring a liberty call while we are in orbit. That is all.”

  “Flank speed” was an inaccurate term, as the only place a starship could go at full engine speed was in Space 3. Nevertheless, the Confederation Navy used it to designate the most direct and swiftest means of reaching a destination. So Captain Bhimbetka briskly gave the orders that would have his starship back in Beam Space in less than three hours, and once again in Space 3 in the vicinity of Haulover two days later.

  “Sir,” Sean asked when the captain finished giving orders and sat back in his chair, “does this have anything to do with the hostile aliens I saw something about right before we left port?”

  “The message didn’t say, Chief.” Bhimbetka had taken to calling Sean “Chief” ever since he’d decided the first class deserved the promotion, and began the proceedings to get him his crow. “But it w
ell could be.”

  “Sir, how many FISTs do the Marines have in combat at Haulunder?”

  “Haulover.”

  “Right, Haulover.” Sean shook his head. “Never heard of it.”

  Bhimbetka grinned. “They have an ensign and two Force Recon squads there. Nine Marines facing who knows what.” Sean’s eyes bugged, The captain’s grin broadened. “You know the Marines, Chief. They believe that if they’d had a single blaster squad at Little Bighorn, they would have beaten those five thousand Sioux and Cheyenne warriors without any help from the Seventh Cavalry.”

  Sean looked at him blankly for a moment then returned the captain’s grin. “Right, sir. And one squad could have replaced the Spartans and beaten the Persians at Thermopylae.”

  Bhimbetka nodded then shook his head. “Yep. That’s the Marines for you.”

  Later, when the Broward County’s captain returned to his cabin, he opened his safe and installed the sealed orders that accompanied the orders to Haulover, orders that he had palmed without anyone’s seeing.

  Headquarters, Emperor’s Third Composite Corps

  The Grand Master had followed the reports from his scouts with great interest for an entire week. The more reports came in the more interesting he found them—and the more puzzling. He had expected a force of more than a thousand Earthman Marines to respond to the raids his troops had been making against the isolated Earthman outposts, or at least several hundred. But so far it appeared that the Earthmen were not responding with any great power. The faces of only nine individuals appeared in the recordings made by his scouts. And one or more of those nine faces appeared in every recording made of visual contacts with the Earthman Marines.

  Where were the rest of the Earthman Marines? Or were those nine the only ones who ever exposed their faces and hands? The scouts had never gotten close enough to sense the presence of others but had kept outside the range of the motion detectors the Emperor’s soldiers knew the enemy carried.

  It was most strange.

  What about aircraft and vehicles? The Earthman Marines had killer aircraft nearly as potent as the aircraft the Third Composite Corps had brought, but none had been seen since the arrival of the Marines. And there was no sign of their amphibious vehicles.

  It was most curious.

  Even more curious was the fact that the scouts sent to look for a base camp could find no sign of one for a unit of any size. Indeed, the scouts who had trailed the Earthman Marines from the destroyed outposts determined that they seemed to bivouac inside the city on the plateau, the capital of the isolated world. The scouts who entered the city disguised as adolescent Earthmen found much evidence of nervousness and concern among its inhabitants but they saw or heard nothing to indicate the presence of an offworld military force.

  It was most peculiar.

  Was it possible that the Earthmen had only sent nine of their Marines to this world in response to the raids conducted by the Emperor’s Third Composite Corps? The Grand Master pondered that question for a time, and finally concluded that it was possible. After all, he had instructed his troops to leave no evidence of who had wrought such destruction on the outposts, who had killed the people. Perhaps the results were too subtle for the Earthmen to interpret correctly. Perhaps there was sufficient dissent among the inhabitants of this world that the local authorities mistakenly believed that the people who established the outposts destroyed them themselves then vanished into even more remote areas of the planet to escape the attention of the authorities and build new lives in anarchy. If that was indeed the situation, then the Earthmen might well have sent only nine Marines. But if the authorities believed that, then why had Earthman Marines come instead of police investigators?

  It was most baffling.

  The Grand Master made a decision; one of the Earthman Marines must be captured and made to answer the questions. Then, if necessary, the commander of the Emperor’s Third Composite Corps would plan a new operation, one that would guarantee that the Earthmen would send a proper force of Marines—Marines that the Grand Master and his army would most joyfully destroy for the greater honor and glory of the Emperor!

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Commanding General’s Office, Task Force Aguinaldo, Camp Swampy, Arsenault

  Shortly after he began to pull his task force together, General Aguinaldo let it be known that every man and woman assigned to his command would go armed at all times with their individual weapon.

  “I want them to learn to live with their weapons, Pradesh,” he’d told newly promoted Lieutenant General Cumberland, his deputy. “We will all carry our weapons 24-7, 365, until they become an extension of our bodies. I want everyone in this task force to know that a weapon is all that stands between them and a Skink acid bath.”

  “There’ll be accidents,” Cumberland warned.

  “We’ll do our best to keep those to a minimum. Except when they’re in the field, we’ll make it an offense to be caught with a ‘round up the spout’ as they used to say. That’ll cut down on accidental discharges in the barracks. I want all NCOs and junior officers to be especially alert in that regard. And I want all commanders to know that if they catch anyone without his or her weapon, even when they’re in the latrine, it’ll cost them. They’ll sleep with their weapons, eat with them, shine, shit, shower, and shave with them, and if there are any romantic liaisons among our people, by God they’d better fuck with them too.”

  Cumberland chuckled as he tried to imagine what that would be like. “The two times when a soldier is most vulnerable to attack is when he’s on the shitter or on his squeeze, that’s right,” he said. “We’ll emphasize constant maintenance too, Andy. All that moisture and dirt will accumulate as they, er, you know . . .” He began to laugh.

  Aguinaldo slapped his knee and joined in the laughter. “But I am serious, Pradesh. You know, I don’t give a damn how these people look. There’ll be no uniform inspections in this task force, none of this ‘junk on the bunk’ foolishness. This command is not a freaking marching band or some kind of ceremonial garrison outfit. We’re going to turn it into a lean, mean fighting machine, one ready to deliver immediate fire on a wily and unpredictable enemy.”

  And he meant what he said. When General Aguinaldo made visits to subordinate commands and found officers requiring their troops to work on garrison beautification details or shine the floors in their barracks—the bane of life in a peacetime military garrison—he tore them a new aperture. “I don’t want them living in filth, gentlemen,” he emphasized at staff conferences, “but a little dirt under an infantryman’s fingernails is perfectly natural, as is a little mud in the barracks, and that can be taken care of in two minutes with a robomaid. And if you don’t have one of those, a good man behind a goddamned push broom.”

  Briefing Room, Headquarters, Task Force Aguinaldo, Camp Swampy

  “Hold up there, old man,” someone said as Colonel Raggel was leaving a staff conference at General Aguinaldo’s head-quarters. It was Lieutenant Colonel Pommie Myers, an infantry battalion commander whose unit was billeted not far from the Seventh Independent Military Police. While the two commanders were not precisely on friendly terms, they were cordial to each other whenever they met at headquarters conferences or held staff meetings to schedule the ranges that troops from both units used for firearms training. There had been some minor disciplinary incidents that the two commanders had had to resolve—usually fistfights at the local beer garden, but nothing very serious. Still, there was a subtle air of tension between the two commands, an unspoken rivalry where it was clear the infantrymen considered the MPs a very inferior breed of soldier.

  Myers was a beefy, barrel-chested man who perspired constantly in the tropical heat. His face was always bright red and the tiny veins in his nose stood out like those of a boozer. He always talked in a very loud voice, leaving everyone with the impression that he considered himself the cock of the walk in all military matters. Although
he never came out and said it, Raggel was quite certain Myers considered him, as an ex-rebel and commander of an MP unit, to be very much the lesser soldier. Myers himself had never been in combat. His battalion had never been called up during the recent war on Ravenette. Truth be told, he’d been passed over for promotion and was very close to the mandatory retirement age for combat arms officers in his own army. Task Force Aguinaldo was his last chance to see real action.

  And although Rene never told Myers, he was an infantry-man himself, not an MP, and he’d commanded a battalion before being assigned to General Davis Lyons’s personal staff during the war on Ravenette.

  “Raggel,” Myers said, coming up and putting a sweaty hand on Rene’s shoulder, “let’s talk.”

  “Well, Myers, I am on my way back to the battalion.” Another thing about the infantryman that irked Raggel was that Myers always used people’s last names, never their first or their rank, and as a full colonel, Rene outranked Myers, and it was a violation of military courtesy that the lower-ranking officer presumed to call him only by his last name. Rene let it go though because he did not see any value in locking the other officer’s heels for him. He just returned the insult whenever they met.

  “Only take a minute.” Myers guided Raggel over to an open window. “Let’s organize a little competition, you and me.” He grinned. “Like, say, a pistol competition on the range. You MPs are sidearms freaks, my men are experts with real weapons, so we’ll take the handicap and challenge your guys to a shoot-out with sidearms. We can organize prizes for the high scorers. Be good for morale, fun for us all. What do you say?”

  Raggel wondered about Myers’s real motive but without hesitation he agreed.

  “Understand you did well on the FTX,” Myers said, changing the subject abruptly. “Of course you MPs were mostly in the rear, weren’t you?”

  “Tolerably well, yes. And your battalion?”