Scout Force

by Rodney Smith

  “Short story, huh? I bet that’s quite a short story.”

  “Yeah, but that’s all I’m saying. I’m tired of telling the story.”

  “So tell me something else about yourself. I’m all ears.” She reached up and pulled her blonde hair behind her ears.

  “Not much to tell, I grew up on Earth in North America near the Great Lakes, I went to a good school, followed in my parents’ footsteps, and got an Electronic Engineering degree. EE bored me, so I applied for the Academy, went into the Fighter Force, and now I’m here.”

  “I get the feeling there is more to tell than just that. I saw your ribbons when you got on my shuttle. You did an awful lot in just a short time in Fighter Force. I’ve seen senior officers without your ribbons.”

  “I know. That’s one of the things that so endeared me to the general.”

  Tammy laughed an honest laugh. Kelly enjoyed that about her. She was easy to be around.

  A shadow fell over the table. Kelly looked up and saw LT Casimirski standing in the light.

  He swayed a little bit as he stood and said, “Tammy, who’s your friend? Oh, I know you. You’re the ensign that’s hard of hearing.”

  Tammy said, “Stop it Cas. Kelly is my friend.”

  “It’s all right Tammy, the ensign and I have met.”

  “Yes, we’ve met. What can I do for you, Lieutenant?

  “You can leave.”

  “Why would I want to do that, Lieutenant?”

  “Because you are messing around with something I have a prior claim on.”

  Tammy flew out of her chair. “A prior claim! What are you talking about, Cas? I have never given you the slightest bit of encouragement. If you keep this up, I am going to the Detachment Commander and reporting you for harassment.”

  Cas recoiled from her anger, backed up, and found LT Drew standing there in his path. Drew grabbed Cas by both arms and said, “Mister, you are upsetting this lady and insulting a friend of mine. I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink. We’re going to help you to a shuttle and send you to your quarters.”

  “You can’t do this to me. I’ve got just as much right to be here as you.”

  Ten gator lieutenants came and stood around LT Casimirski.

  LT Drew said, “We’re not as impressed by your rank as these ensigns might be. Now, you don’t want to argue with all of us. You probably don’t even want to argue with me.”

  Drew picked up LT Casimirski by the arms and frog marched him out of the club. The party resumed. Kelly and Tammy sat back down and finished their beers.

  “So, Kelly, what have you planned for tomorrow? You do get tomorrow off, don’t you?”

  “I don’t have any plans. Are you going to suggest something?”

  “There is a pretty good sized lake to the west of here. I was going to rent a skimmer and go out to one of the islands and bake in the sun, splash around, have a picnic. Are you interested?

  “Sure, that sounds like fun. Who else will be going along?”

  “Just us.” She said with a beguiling smile on her face.

  “With such pleasant company, how can I refuse?”

  “We’ll leave from the Q at 0800. Just bring yourself and some sunscreen. If they didn’t explain the orbital dynamics of Armstrong, I should fill you in. Armstrong doesn’t wobble on its axis like Earth. There are no changing seasons here. The angle of the planet to the sun is constant. Here in the northern hemisphere it is always Summer. There is no northern polar icecap. In the south it’s always springlike. The sun can burn you pretty quickly here if you don’t use a strong screen. It's especially bad for folks coming off a long patrol. They go from pasty white to cherry red in a fraction of an afternoon.”

  She tipped her bottle back and said, “I think it’s your turn to buy the beer.”

  Kelly ordered another round, they spent the rest of the night talking and drinking. Periodically, one of the gators would buy a round for the house. As things wound down in the bar, she suggested they should go back to the Q and turn in. 0800 would come awfully early.

  They shared a shuttle back to the Q. Tammy lay back in Kelly’s arms. She looked up at him, gave him a slow lingering kiss, and promptly passed out.

  Kelly picked her up once the shuttle arrived at the Q and carried her to her quarters. He loosened her clothes, took off her shoes, put her under the covers, and retired to his own quarters.

  * * * * *

  Charles Delphant, Chairman and CEO of the Indigo Consortium was alone, working late in his office on the top floor of the Consortium’s main administrative building on Secundus, in the Fomalhaut System. The office’s furnishings reflected the wealth and prestige of its owner. Real oak panels covered the walls. Plush wool carpet covered the floor. The desk was solid walnut, imported to Secundus directly from Earth at no small expense. Earth wood and wool were an almost unheard of luxury in the outer worlds. He had let his secretary go an hour earlier, telling her he had only some minor matters to resolve before calling it a day. He finished those matters, then touched a hidden button under his desk.

  That button activated a number of special security measures. The door double locked. The windows went opaque. Infrasonic wave generators activated in the walls, doors, and on the windows, foiling any possible listening devices. He logged his terminal off the company network and reconnected to a special network not associated in any way with the Consortium.

  He checked messages on a special public account. Ten messages hit his queue. All were innocuous. Two were advertisements. Three dealt with trading cooking recipes. The remainders were short humorous video files. Anyone intercepting them would have been bored mightily.

  Delphant attached a small storage device to his terminal and loaded the messages onto it. Shortly, a green light activated on the side of the device. He opened the storage device’s volume and clicked on a small program icon. A small holographic image of the solicitous K’Rang merchant, T’Polla, appeared on his desktop.

  “Mr. Delphant, we are very pleased with the business and financial information you have provided thus far. Your monetary system is, pardon the expression, alien to us. We hope the small tokens of our esteem have pleased you. These are but one type of merchandise that we will be able to make available once we have established trade relations with the Galactic Republic. Of course, when that happy day occurs, your company will be our agent for distribution of K’Rang goods throughout human space.”

  “We in the merchant class have been working closely with the political class here on the K’Rang home world to gain dominance over the warrior class and improve relations with the Galactic Republic. We have made great strides, thus far. This constant warfare is useless and accomplishes nothing but keeping our boastful and ineffective military in fancy uniforms. Their xenophobic reaction to all other civilizations is most taxing and must be stopped. We long for peace and the eventual benefit and profit that can accrue to both our civilizations.”

  “A four K’Andor shipment of the B’Rella, excuse me, flame stones will be transferred over at our next rendezvous. I have included a list of the information on frontier planetary systems that will be needed for us to plan our trade routes and distribution centers. In addition, I don’t know if you will be interested in trading in K’Rang surplus military equipment once peace arrives and our trade relations are cemented, but if you could provide information on these systems’ military capabilities, it would help us to know what armaments might interest them. Even if we won’t be at war anymore, there are always brigands and pirates to deal with.”

  “Please give my regards to Mr. Gundersen. I found him to be a most agreeable human at our last meeting. We look forward to our next meeting with great anticipation.”

  The K’Rang bowed and the hologram dissolved. A list of ten star systems and associated planets scrolled across his screen.

  Charles Delphant thought about the video. The information the K’Rang requested would be easy to acquire. Most of it was easily available over the
open network. His contracted research firm could get him the rest. The military information was a new twist.

  He had assumed that such a request would be forthcoming. He knew the K’Rang would eventually want something of real value for their flame stones. He would have to make sure that the information on the frontier system’s military defenses was of a low enough granularity that it would do the K’Rang military little good. He could always beg off that such information was classified and unavailable. Maybe he could squeeze a few more cases of flame stones out of the K’Rang before he was done.

  He had little hope for the eventual establishment of peaceful trade relations between humans and the K’Rang, but he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to acquire a steady stream of flame stones. He pulled a large one out of a special carved box in his desk and looked at it. Even for someone that had been in the jewelry business for as long as he had, it was breathtaking. The orange-crimson luminescence made it shine like it was on fire, but it was cold to the touch. He loved to watch the colors shift. It also pleased him that this stone the size of a child’s large marble could match his not inconsiderable salary for ten years.

  He had almost 30 liters of them, some even larger, at his mine on the Consortium’s Asteroid 4533 in the Rigel System. It would not be long before flame stones would be “discovered” there and he could bring them onto the market in small enough quantities to supply them to a most discerning and wealthy clientele, but not enough to dissipate the demand. He forecasted a 300 percent overall increase in company profits from this “discovery” next year alone. If the K’Rang only knew the true value of these “shiny rocks,” as they referred to them.

  Putting the stone away in its box, he concentrated on formulating two messages: one, heavily encrypted, to T’Polla agreeing to his request and another to Gundersen, informing him of his next trip to inspect the Consortium offices on New Alexandria in the 6664 System.

  * * * * *

  On Sunday morning a sheepish-looking Tammy showed up at Kelly’s door. He was ready to go. She said, “I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself last night.”

  “Not a bit. You were a perfect lady up to and including after you passed out,” Kelly chuckled.

  “I don’t normally drink that much. Those gators sure do know how to party. Let’s go.”

  They caught a shuttle over to the morale services marina, rented a skimmer, loaded their stuff on board, and headed out. Kelly let Tammy steer and watched her at the wheel. She was wearing a pair of white shorts and a white crop top that accentuated all her good features, and she had a lot of them.

  A few minutes out, she turned to him and said, “Kelly, would you get my sunscreen from my bag below and put some on my back.”

  Kelly went below, found her bag, fished out the sunscreen, and came back up through the hatch. Kelly came to a screeching halt as he got to the cockpit. Tammy was no longer wearing her shorts and top, or anything for that matter. The girl was gorgeous. While the last century of space exploration and settlement had all but killed the Puritan ethic, a pretty woman was still a pretty woman, and Tammy was a vision. Her blonde hair was blowing in the wind and her skin was a golden bronze. She was concentrating on steering and didn’t notice Kelly’s reaction. Kelly moved around behind her and put a liberal amount of sunscreen in his hands and spread it across her back, her bottom, and thighs.

  She said, “Hand me the lotion. I’ll do my front.”

  Kelly squeezed some lotion in her hands and she rubbed it into her breasts, stomach, and thighs. Kelly was a little disappointed, but tried not to let it show. Kelly took off his clothes and threw them below.

  “Come take the wheel,” she said, “and I’ll get your back.”

  Kelly switched places with her and enjoyed her hands smoothing the lotion on him. He took the bottle from her and covered his front, paying special attention to the spots that don’t see that much sun on a regular basis. It wouldn’t do to get sunburned there.

  Kelly handed the wheel back to Tammy. He didn’t know where they were going. She turned west in mid-lake and headed for a group of three islands. The southern island had a skimmer run up on shore. The northern island had two. A fire was burning on the beach and tents were set up. Tammy piloted around the center island to a small cove on the western side. She sent Kelly astern to fish a small anchor out of a locker. When they got closer to the shore, Kelly dropped the anchor off the stern and paid out line as they moved forward. Tammy nosed the skimmer up on the beach and told Kelly to make the line fast on the cleat.

  “Sometimes the reservoir upstream releases overflow water into this reservoir and the stern anchor keeps your skimmer from getting too far away from shore. More than a few people have found their skimmers gone after a day lying on the beach. Help me get the other anchor and we’ll put it up on shore. I like redundancies to my redundancies.”

  Kelly fished out the other anchor. He went over the side and waded it ashore. He went about ten meters up on shore and planted the anchor in the sand. Tammy tied the anchor line off and brought a cooler up from below. She passed it over from the bow to Kelly and went back for more. Kelly carried it up above the anchor and set it down. He went back to get a small cooker and put it next to the cooler. She said she could get the rest.

  Kelly looked around at the island. It was about a kilometer square in size. A rock escarpment about 15 meters high dropped down into the water on the southern side of the cove. Some sort of yellow moss clung to the rocks and trailed down into the water. Above that was a small copse of trees that looked like pine trees, or their Antarean cousins. There was a break in the trees about ten meters wide, where the escarpment ended in the middle of the island. Beyond that were some local deciduous trees with trifurcate branches evenly spaced from ground to tip. Tammy came up with the last of the gear and proceeded to set up camp.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  She looked up at him and said, “See if you can find some dead fall wood. We can burn that. Don’t break any live branches off the trees. That’s against regulations and the local wood really, really stinks if you burn it when it’s green.”

  Kelly went up the slight slope to the trees and started gathering wood. He came back with an armful and went back for more. When he’d amassed a pretty good supply he went into the water to wash off the wood bits and leaves. The water was nice and cool. He swam out a ways and dove down. The water was clear and he could see the bottom a few meters below. He was going to swim down to the bottom when he saw something large move to his right. He didn’t know what it was, but it was big and black. Not knowing the local water creatures, he beat a hasty retreat to the beach.

  “Tammy, what are the local fish like?”

  “There are trout and bass brought from Earth, but they don’t do too well here. The indigenous fish are the wing fish, the Antarean eel, and the black sleeper. The wing fish looks like an eagle flying under water. It has these huge fins sticking out to each side. The Antarean eel looks like a snake with fins. The black sleeper is the catfish of Armstrong. They lie on the bottom where a current flows and filter nutrients out of the water. They usually don’t move unless you disturb them.”

  “I just disturbed one. He disturbed me a bit, too. Thanks.”

  Kelly turned to go back into the water. Tammy came over to him, handed him a mask, and put one on her face. Each mask had a small light attached to the head strap. They both went into the water together. Her hand found his and pulled him in after her. She pushed off from him and dove down into deeper water. Kelly followed behind, admiring the view. Tammy was a strong swimmer and Kelly had to work to keep up with her. They both came up for air and she told him to follow her.

  She dove down toward some rocks and Kelly stayed close behind. She stopped, turned toward him, and made a dive under sign with her hands. Kelly followed her down. As he got to the bottom of a rock wall, Kelly could see an opening. Tammy went in and motioned for him to follow. He went in behind her. She switched on her light. Kelly
fumbled with his light until his came on too. As he looked up he could see the quicksilver appearance of an air pocket far above him. Kelly was already treading water in the air pocket. He came up beside her, stuck his head up into the air pocket, and took a cautious breath. The air was cool and fresh.

  “This is kind of neat. How did you find this place?”

  “I came out here with breather units once and followed my nose. This chimney comes out on the island somewhere. I’ve looked but never found it. Come over here.”

  Tammy swam over to a shelf along the far wall and climbed up. Kelly followed her.

  “Kelly, did I kiss you last night?”

  “As a matter of fact, you did, right before you passed out.”

  “Good, I planned to kiss you. I’m glad I succeeded. I just wish I could remember it. Do you suppose I could kiss you again?”

  Kelly took off his mask, leaned over to her, and said, “It would probably be easier if you took off your mask.”

  Tammy pulled her mask off, and Kelly leaned into her and kissed her.

  Tammy closed her eyes and leaned back, breaking the kiss. “I don’t see how I could have forgotten that. May I have another?”

  Kelly pulled her close and kissed her again. She melted into his arms, but gave back as good as she got. Her wet body felt soft and warm against him. She was a good kisser. Kelly’s breath got a little shallow.

  She broke the kiss, looked around at the size of the rock shelf, and dropped back off into the water. She said, “This shelf is a little small for the large ideas I’m getting. Let’s go back to the beach. Watch your head when you come out of the cave.”

  Kelly followed her down the tunnel and back out into open water. She broke the surface to take a breath and then dove down a meter below the surface, swimming to shore. Kelly did the same. When they reached the shallows, she grabbed his hand and pulled him to the shore. They went over to the blanket and threw themselves down. She passed him a towel so he could dry off.