Recoil

by David Sherman

  “All right, if you say so,” the medic said doubtfully. “Give me some data on him.” He got out his comp and asked a series of questions—name, age, home, nature of injuries, and more—and entered the answers into his comp. While he did that, the other medic went back to the ambulance for a gurney.

  In the sergeants’ bedroom, the chief medic checked over Sergeant Kindy while the other medic took down the answers to the routine questions.

  Finally, satisfied that Kindy was properly stabilized, the chief medic said, “Whoever patched him up did good work.” He looked at Williams in the stasis bag and murmured something envious about offworld technology. He and his assistant went to the ambulances for gurneys.

  Before the constables allowed the ambulances to leave, the sergeant asked the medics a few questions. He wasn’t fully satisfied with their answers; the stasis bags prevented them from giving firsthand descriptions of the injuries of the bagged Marines.

  After he let the ambulances leave, Watchman turned to Daly. “You were going to show me what happened here.”

  “Detachment up!” Daly called, and began talking while his few remaining men assembled. “It began with Corporal Nomonon, who was on fire watch.”

  Watchman raised an eyebrow when Daly said he had a man on fire watch; he wondered why the Marines kept an overnight watch, but didn’t comment on it. Not yet, anyway. Instead, he observed and listened quietly while the Marines walked him through what had happened. He took in the secure room, the manacles, the furniture bolted to the floor, and the charred mattress and bedding, but still didn’t say anything about the state of things. He barely blinked when Daly and the other Marines told him about the attackers’ vaporizing when hit by the plasma bolts shot from blasters—that was merely another anomaly in their account that would need further checking. Just then, all he wanted to do was gather data without putting anybody’s guard up.

  They had completed the tour of Marine House and the recounting of what had happened when Planetary Administrator Spilk Mullilee showed up. But he wasn’t alone; he came in the retinue of Chairman of the Board Smelt Miner. They didn’t arrive to the tune of sirens, or even the screech of tires breaking to a stop outside. The first the people inside knew of the arrival of Mullilee and Miner was the chairman’s raised voice.

  “Constable, disperse those people! Send them home. I don’t care who they are, get them away from here!” Then he swept through the entrance of Marine House.

  “What in the name of the Goddess of Monumental Screw-ups did you do here?” Miner demanded, taking in the scorch marks on the living room floor and a half-burned easy chair. “Were you trying to burn the house down? Did you want to get rid of any evidence of your incompetence?”

  Ensign Daly pointed to the broken windows and the blood pooled on the floor where Corporal Nomonon had been shot. “There was a fight,” he said tightly. “I’ve got three men seriously wounded and in your hospital. Two of them might not survive.”

  “Four casualties,” Corporal Belinski said softly. “You forgot yourself.”

  Daly ignored him. “As for the burned places, I don’t know how or why, but when we shot the people who attacked us they went up in flames.”

  The remaining Marines nodded their agreement.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Corporal Jaschke said.

  “People don’t do that when they get shot by blasters,” Lance Corporal Ellis added. “They just don’t flare up.” He looked haunted.

  Mullilee looked sick, listening to the Marines. “How badly did they—whoever they were—hurt you?” he asked.

  “Sergeant Kindy and Corporal Nomonon are injured so badly we had to put them in stasis bags to keep them alive until they could get proper medical attention. Sergeant Williams should be in one as well, but we only brought two. And if a Confederation Navy starship doesn’t arrive on station soon enough, the two bags might not keep them alive until one does. And I have no idea how long that may be.”

  “Wh-What about you?” Mullilee asked. “Someone said you’re hurt.”

  Daly grimaced. “Just a few cuts, nothing serious.”

  Miner looked at the collection of civilian rifles and handguns piled in the middle of the room. “I only see one knife there. What happened, did you have a knife fight with one of them?”

  Daly shook his head. “I came in the back window to flank the last of them.” He didn’t explain further when Miner looked at him questioningly.

  “These are all civilian weapons,” the chairman of the board said. “Are you sure you didn’t kill some locals and then try to get rid of the evidence by burning them?”

  “Do you know any way to make a human body burn to vapor and do nothing more to its surroundings than leave a scorch mark on the floor?” Daly asked. “I certainly don’t. These people . . .” He shook his head. “These creatures simply whooshed up in flame when we shot them with our blasters.”

  “People just don’t do that,” Ellis said again. His eyes were wide enough to show whites all around.

  “Snap out of it, Marine,” Jaschke said, giving Ellis’s shoulder a shake. With Kindy out of action and Nomonon maybe dead, he was acting squad leader and had to take charge of the situation.

  Ellis shook the hand off and turned his back to the civilian authorities, looking away from the signs of battle. He took a deep, shuddering breath to calm himself. And then another.

  Jaschke stepped around to look at Ellis. He put a hand on Ellis’s shoulder and leaned his forehead on Ellis’s. “You’re Force Recon now, Ellis,” he murmured. “Sometimes we see things that other Marines only see in their worst nightmares. You were with us on Ravenette. That was a straightforward operation, just going in and snooping and pooping behind enemy lines, getting intel, and hitting them where they thought they were safe. Sometimes we don’t have any idea what we’re up against. When that happens, we show the enemy that whatever they can do to us, we can do worse to them.”

  Ellis was breathing more calmly and his eyes no longer looked haunted. “What worse can we do to these . . . these creatures?” he said. “We don’t know how many of them there are. They might have already killed one of us, and they’ve wounded half of the rest.”

  Jaschke chuckled. “You know what they say about Marines: ‘The difficult we do immediately. The impossible might take a little longer.’ So we’re up against the impossible. Or at least the improbable. We’ll figure it out, don’t worry. And we’ve got a navy starship coming to give assistance. They’ll string their pearls around this planet, and then we’ll have the bad guys right where we want them.”

  “When’s the navy going to get here?”

  “When they do, that’s all.”

  A corner of Ellis’s mouth twitched up in a wry half-smile. “And as every Marine knows, the navy’s always late.”

  Jaschke grinned back. “Except when they’re dropping Marines into harm’s way.” He gave the junior man’s shoulder a comradely shake.

  While Jaschke was steadying Ellis, Daly continued talking to Chairman Miner, though he mostly directed what he said to the planetary administrator. Miner still seemed suspicious of the Marines, but had stopped asking if they’d actually killed innocent citizens of Haulover and tried to disguise the fact. Mullilee continued to look sick. Sergeant Watchman listened carefully for any discrepancies between what Daly told Mullilee and Miner and what the Marines had said before. There weren’t any—and the Marine officer left out the same details he’d left out when showing Watchman around.

  “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me,” Daly finally said, “I have some people in the hospital who I need to check on.”

  “A-And get yourself tended to,” Mullilee said.

  “I’m all right.”

  “You’re bleeding.” Mulilee pointed at Daly’s shirt. A red stain was spreading over his ribs.

  Daly nodded. “And get myself tended to.” He didn’t ask but he wondered where General Vojak was. Surely, the Haulover minister of war had more busi
ness here than the civilian chairman of the board did.

  Headquarters, Emperor’s Third Composite Corps, Haulover

  The Grand Master sat cross-legged high on his dais, with four sword-armed Large Ones arrayed to his rear and sides, and was attended by a diminutive female who poured and tested his steaming beverage before he drank.

  The two Masters who had served as scouts, observing the action at the base of the Earthman Marines in the capital city of this Earthman world, prostrated themselves before the Grand Master and related what they had seen. They spoke in turn, loudly, so that their voices were not fully absorbed by the reed matting mere centimeters from their downcast faces. The Great Master who served as the chief of staff stood to one side of the Masters, sword in hand. An Over Master, also with sword in hand, stood to the scouts’ other side.

  The Grand Master listened with little indication that he was paying attention. The two Masters stopped talking when the Grand Master clapped his hands, signaling another diminutive female to make an appearance. The Grand Master rasped a few words at her, and she disappeared, only to reappear a moment later, bearing a small tray with a covered dish and a single flower in a fluted vase. This second female approached the Grand Master and bowed deeply, setting her small tray on a low table near the Grand Master’s side. At a growled, raspy command, she knelt and sat on her heels to uncover the dish on her tray. Using food sticks, she stirred the contents of the dish and delicately picked up a morsel, which she put into her own mouth. She masticated slowly and then swallowed. She opened her mouth wide, exposing tiny, pointed teeth to the Grand Master. He probed her mouth with a finger to ascertain that she had indeed swallowed the morsel. Turning his attention from her as though she were no longer there, he growled, and the Masters resumed their discourse of the night’s events.

  The Grand Master gave no indication of his reaction to the discussion, but he approved of the locations from which the Masters had observed—just beyond the search area—which came into play once the local authorities arrived and searched the area for other raiders. The Masters told the Grand Master of the gunfire they’d heard coming from inside the Earthman Marines’ base, and of the flashes of light they’d seen. He particularly appreciated hearing about the bodies that were carried out of the building after the fight was over. The bodies told him the Earthman Marines had suffered casualties, that the fighting wasn’t at all one-sided. Although the fact that there was no more fighting once the local authorities arrived indicated that none of the strike team had survived the battle.

  When all the others had gone, the Masters had crept close to the building and listened at the broken windows. Both of them spoke the Earthman language, which was part of why they were chosen for the scouting mission. They heard enough to know that the raid’s primary objective had been achieved; the captured Fighter was dead and properly immolated. Beyond that, the Grand Master learned from the story told that the hated enemy had suffered severe casualties, and that gladdened the Grand Master’s heart.

  The Grand Master may have seemed to have totally dismissed the second female from his awareness, but he continued to pay attention to her aspect. When, after some minutes had passed, she showed no sign of distress from the morsel she had eaten, he waved a hand in a manner that instructed her to lift the dish in front of his face so he wouldn’t have to look for it to spear morsels with his food sticks while he nibbled at the small food offerings inside it. He was finished eating and had dismissed the second female by the time the Masters finished their tale.

  Well satisfied by the report of the raid, the Grand Master rasped a series of curt orders, and a short parade of females filed into the hall, bearing two low tables for the two Masters to sit behind and two pots of steaming beverage, along with two covered dishes. The two Masters took their places and partook of the Grand Master’s food and beverage. They basked in the distinction of the Grand Master’s favor, a favor almost as great as being promoted to Senior Master—promotions they now expected to receive in the near future.

  Marine House, Sky City, Haulover

  The constabulary had a light cordon of officers around Marine House, two on each side, providing security, when a Haulover army vehicle dropped Ensign Daly off on his return from the hospital. Daly didn’t say so, not to them, but he was glad they hadn’t been there a few hours earlier when Marine House was attacked. If the constabulary had been there, he was sure he’d have fewer wounded Marines. But he was equally certain that there would have been several dead constables. Maybe all of them. Whoever the attackers were, they were fighters. The constables were watchmen; they wouldn’t have stood a chance against fighters.

  And why were police constables guarding Marine House? Surely that was a job for the army. Daly made a mental note to contact General Vojak when he got the chance and ask him.

  “Detachment, on me!” Daly called out when he closed the door to Marine House behind him. He appeared solemn as the remaining four Marines assembled in the living room. He looked each of them in the eye.

  “Nomonon didn’t make it,” Daly finally said. “There was too much trauma, too much bleeding, before we could get him into the stasis bag. I had them clean the bag out and put Kindy into it.” He looked at them again. “Both squad leaders are out of action, so we have to do some reorganizing. Belinski, you’re senior, which makes you the acting squad leader. Jaschke, you’re assistant squad leader. When you have to operate in two-man teams, go with the lance corporal from your original squad. We’ll take another look when Rudd comes back, which should be in a couple of days.” He paused to swallow. “Sooner if we need him.”

  “Questions?”

  “What do we do next?” Belinski asked.

  “We’re Force Recon. Barring other orders, we gather intelligence. Anything else?” Daly looked at his four men; there weren’t any more questions. “I’m going to file another report with Fourth Fleet.” He headed for his room.

  Daly had spent the time in transit from the hospital back to Marine House thinking of what he was going to say in this report. All he had to do now was put it into order, code it in, and upload the report to the Mark IX Echo along with a launch order. But all he could think about for some time was the things that had happened every time he found himself in command of more than one squad.

  He’d taken over command of second platoon on Atlas after everyone senior to him in the platoon had been killed or wounded. And they suffered more casualties. He’d taken charge when the tsunami hit the town of Oceanside on Arsenault when he was on liberty there during Officer Training College. People under him died. Now he was in command on a mission that didn’t require an officer, and one Marine was dead and two more were in stasis bags. He beat himself up over the losses, trying to figure out if people under him had died because of some deficiency in his leadership. But it was a question he couldn’t answer easily so he forced himself to put it aside and get about the business at hand.

  TO: Commander, Fourth Force Reconnaissance Company Camp Howard, MCB Camp Basilone, Halfway

  FROM: Commander, Force Recon Detachment, Haulover

  RE: Mission Update

  1) In the early hours this date, Marine House was attacked by an enemy force of approximately ten persons. One Marine KIA. Three Marines WIA, two of them currently in stasis bags awaiting arrival of Conf. Navy warship. All aggressors KIA. Prisoner detailed in previous message KIA.

  2) All: NOTE: ALL aggressor KIA vaporized upon being struck by plasma bolts fired from hand blasters. All surviving Marines involved in action witnessed vaporization. I have never heard of such a thing, and need whatever data is available on such incidents.

  3) I strongly suspect that there is more than a small raiding force from another human world present on Haulover. Possible alien sentience?

  4) Request a full Fleet Initial Strike Team be dispatched to Haulover as soon as possible.

  5) Need Navy string-of-pearls right now.

  Daly stopped and read over the message. Yes, it said every
thing it needed to. Even though the people at Camp Howard were going to wonder if he was ill with that “Possible alien sentience?” sentence. But how else to explain the vaporization?

  Daly and his men were Force Recon; he added one more line to his message before sending it off:

  6) Continuing mission.

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  THIRTY-THREE

  A Confederation Navy Essay in Orbit Around Haulover

  Bosun’s Mate First Tigure Sean was in charge of the Essays laying the string-of-pearls when the CNSS Broward County went into orbit around Haulover. It wasn’t as good as being on the bridge, where he could hear all the comm between the captain and the Marines planetside, but Lieutenant Commander Bhimbetka would likely wear a headset, at least for his initial contacts, and only the duty comm officer and chief radioman would be able to hear any of the comm anyway. Here on the Essay, though, Sean could tap into any of the string-of-pearls’ channels and pick up anything he wanted to hear. Provided what he wanted to hear wasn’t scrambled or on a visual-only channel.

  The first thing he found that was very interesting was that the Force Recon Marines planetside had sent a message drone to their headquarters on Halfway just a few hours earlier. The second was that Captain Bhimbetka was very interested in that message, and had ordered the Marine commander up to the ship.

  That second item didn’t come through the data he was scanning from the string-of-pearls, it came in a direct message from the Broward County—Sean was to take his Essay planetside as soon as he finished laying the string-of-pearls and pick up the jarhead ensign and carry him to orbit.

  Captain’s Quarters, CNSS Broward County

  Lieutenant Commander Aladdin Bhimbetka made sure the door to his cabin was secured before he opened his wall safe and removed the sealed orders he’d received along with the “any Confederation Navy starship” drone message. He took the vacuum-wrapped orders to his desk and sat before breaking the seal. He found it interesting that inside the first vacuum wrap was another along with the expected crystal. He inserted the first crystal into his console and began reading. The beginning of the message was background about a hostile alien sentience, much of which he had already learned, followed by a supposition that said aliens were now on Haulover—which he had suspected as soon as the Broward County had found the “any Confederation Navy starship” change of orders. The sealed orders went on to say that he was to deploy his string-of-pearls upon arrival at Haulover—which he had already done before he opened his safe to retrieve the orders. He was to meet immediately upon arrival with the commander of the Marine Force Recon detachment planetside. If the Marine commander had intelligence that met any one of a string of criteria listed in the orders, Bhimbetka—or whichever starship’s commander received the sealed orders—was to open the second set of sealed orders and follow them. If none of the criteria were met, the second set of sealed orders was to be locked away until his starship was relieved or ordered off station around Haulover.