First To Fight

by David Sherman

  "However it goes, if you carry a weapon, whether for the reasons we do or for some other reason, sooner or later you're going to use it. And that's what happened on Elneal. With no government to keep them in check, the tribesmen and various other groups quickly found themselves at war with each other."

  Top Myer paused a moment, then went on: "If you're thinking that not every individual descendant of the original colonists wants to carry weapons and fight, you're right. Not all of them do. Those who don't, generally don't live to become adults—they get killed during their juvenile training. Some manage to run away to New Obbia. Most of them, though, prefer death rather than the shame of running away. The people of New Obbia are universally considered to be lower than human—to go there is to suffer the greatest shame.

  "If they were using swords, or bows and arrows, or other ancient weapons, it wouldn't be too bad. But they started out with projectile-throwing firearms, which are much more devastating. I don't have any hard confirmation on this, but there are rumors that some of them have blasters today. Without the controls imposed by a social order larger than the clan or tribe, when people are well enough armed, they go around slaughtering everyone who isn't a member of the same clan or tribe. You can put that down as a law of nature. It's happened time and again throughout all of human history. It's happening today on Elneal.

  "On most worlds in Human Space, citizens can walk about with reasonable expectation of not being molested. They do it unarmed. There's no need for them to carry deadly weapons. On Elneal, they've created a world where no one can walk around expecting that nobody will try to kill him. It's a world where anyone unarmed is in extreme jeopardy. Hell, anyone who isn't in a large band of heavily armed men is in constant danger." He shook his head. "Supposedly that's stopped now. The clans and tribes and other groups want to end the famine and are willing to stop fighting—or so they say. I'll believe it when I see every last one of them disarmed."

  He stopped talking, and stood for a long moment looking someplace only he could see. When he resumed, his voice was much softer than it had been.

  "We are not going in on a combat operation. We are going in to provide symbolic security for the distribution of food and medical supplies. We are also going to oversee the disarming of the warring factions—or at least see to it that they go about unarmed. We are not expected to do any fighting. That is the official word from the top. They believe it so much they made us leave our chameleons behind." He suddenly became gruff and serious again. "But we damn well better be prepared to fight. Because anyone who isn't prepared to fight is most probably going to get killed.

  "That is all. Platoon sergeants, the platoons are yours." Top Myer made his way through the crowded room to the back, where Gunny Thatcher was undogging and opening the hatch. The two top NCOs left together.

  Sergeant Hyakowa, Company L's three regular platoon sergeants, and the transportation company platoon sergeants, looked at one another. They had to meet with their men and continue the briefing by platoons, but Top Myer was a tough act to follow.

  Because the men of the transportation company were conducting maintenance on their vehicles, and half the Dragons were in the two Essays mated to the Gordon, a breathable atmosphere was maintained in the Essays. Hyakowa only wished the transportation chief hadn't been so condescending about graciously allowing third platoon to cram itself into one of the Essays for its meeting.

  Sergeant Hyakowa told the men of third platoon about some of the humanitarian aid and peacekeeping missions he'd been on, and about things that went wrong with them. Then he had everyone else in the platoon with experience on such missions talk about them. He thought it was curious that no one had a story to tell about a humanitarian relief mission on which nothing went wrong.

  As Captain Conorado predicted, Ensign Baccacio was very busy indeed. His two primary official duties were assisting in planning operations, and meeting and getting to know the men in his new platoon.

  Now that they knew where they were going and what their duties would be once they got there, the company's officers, assisted by Top Myer, Gunny Thatcher, and Staff Sergeant Bass, who was still de facto platoon commander until Captain Conorado decided that Ensign Baccacio was up to speed, worked on their operational plan.

  Company L, reinforced by the transportation platoons, was to land at New Obbia, meet with the Confederation Consul for assistance in establishing a base of operations, and prepare for the arrival of 34th FIST's command element, which was expected to arrive in two or three days. Part of that preparation would consist of updating the month-old information they now had on the situation on Elneal. Using this probably already-obsolete information, they were choosing which localities should receive the first deliveries of food and medical supplies.

  They considered the topography of various sites, usability of existing roads between the capital and the sites, terrain conditions where roads were lacking, and other factors affecting accessibility. They took into consideration population size and density, and were concerned with the level of famine—what percentage of the population at a site might be saved by timely arrival of relief supplies. Other concerns included the location, number, and condition of existing food and medical supplies—distressingly few and small outside the city. They made guesstimates about the likelihood of hostile action from groups that weren't yet ready to lay down their arms and end the starvation. They factored in the number, type, and condition of local-government and Confederation delivery vehicles.

  When all this information was before them, they weighted everything and assigned priorities to more than a hundred distribution sites, first those within two days' land travel of New Obbia, then within easy air transport distance of the city. Then they spread out farther.

  Finally, they examined their own manpower and transportation resources to determine how they might bring the greatest benefit to the largest number of people in the several days between when they began distribution of food and arrival of the rest of 34th FIST, or elements of the other FISTs in the provisional brigade.

  In the end they had a plan for a crude kind of triage. Many people would still die, which was frustrating, but more would be saved.

  They knew they would have to redo everything once they landed on Elneal and got updated information, which was also frustrating, but at least they had a matrix for the plan—and that would cut days off the time between the landing and the dispatch of the first relief convoy.

  For his other official duty, Ensign Baccacio dutifully went about with Staff Sergeant Bass to meet everybody in the platoon. He asked each man the usual questions:

  "How long have you been in?" Dean, McNeal, and a few others had been in less than a year. Sergeant Hyakowa had twelve years' service.

  "How much action have you seen?" None for Claypoole, Dean, McNeal, and a few others, ten operations and campaigns for Leach. Everybody else was somewhere in between.

  "Do you plan to make a career of the Corps?" Those on their second or subsequent enlistments all said they were making a career of it; the rest were about equally divided between thinking about it and no.

  "How old are you?" Their ages ranged from twenty-two to thirty-five.

  "Where are you from?" Most of them were from small cities, towns, and rural areas of Earth, though there were an appreciable number from other worlds. Few were from major cities.

  "What do your parents think of your being in the Corps?" Their parents were uniformly proud—how else would you answer that question?

  "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" None to eight.

  "Are any of them Marines?" A few. "How much education do you have?" Mostly college, very little graduate work.

  "What was your study major?" They studied computer science, history, engineering, liberal arts, philosophy, fine arts, premed, business—the usual gamut.

  "What are your interests or hobbies?" Baccacio was distressed at how many of them said drinking and chasing girls.

  "Do you have a st
eady girl?" He shouldn't have been surprised that none of them had a steady relationship with a woman—not with marriage banned for Marines under the rank of staff sergeant—but he was.

  "What do you like to do on liberty?" Nor should he have been dismayed that what they most wanted to do was drink, chase women, and generally carouse.

  "When was your last leave?" On average, none of them had taken leave in more than two years.

  "Where did you go on it?" Most of them went home for leave.

  Before he was through meeting them all, Ensign Baccacio became convinced that none of his men were living up to his potential and he had a major job ahead of him, straightening out this platoon.

  Ensign Baccacio also assigned himself an unofficial duty. He got on good terms with Corporal Doyle so he could have greater access to the personnel records than a junior officer under his circumstances normally did. He was most interested in Charlie Bass's record. He wanted to know why, if Bass was as great a leader of men as Conorado said, he was only a staff sergeant. Of course, it was all there in the records.

  Several days into the voyage, at the end of a long planning session for contingencies in event of hostilities, Bass noticed Baccacio staring at him intensely. Sensing that the younger man was looking for an opportunity to assert his authority, Bass didn't follow the officers out of the ship's secondary ward room, which had been assigned to the Marines as their operations center. Instead he sat down again and waited, calmly looking at the ensign.

  At first it seemed Baccacio was going to follow the other officers out of the ward room, but he stopped when he reached the door. Looking both ways along the passageway outside, he stepped back, pulled the hatch shut, and dogged it. Then he turned back to Bass, who casually gestured for him to take a seat.

  Baccacio hesitated. He didn't want it to appear that he needed the NCO's permission to sit down, but if he remained standing, he would seem to be declining the offer, which might mean he was losing control of the situation before he had a chance to say anything. So he sat down across the table from Bass.

  "The men seem to like you, Staff Sergeant Bass," Baccacio said after the two men studied each other for a moment.

  "Yessir, it does seem that way," Bass replied noncommittally.

  Baccacio nodded. It wasn't quite the response he expected, but it gave him another opening. "You treat them well."

  Bass nodded.

  "You even go on liberty with them. Do you think that's wise?"

  Bass raised an eyebrow. "It's not precise to say I go on liberty with the men," he said. "It's more that I sometimes go on liberty to the same places they do."

  "Is there a difference?"

  Bass shrugged. There was, but if Baccacio didn't want to see it, he wasn't going to argue the point.

  "Noncommissioned officers, like commissioned officers, should distance themselves from the men, don't you think?"

  Bass dipped his head in a slight nod, wondering where this conversation was going. Surely Baccacio wasn't going to take him to task for a situation that wouldn't arise anytime in the foreseeable future.

  "Officers and NCOs have to send men into harm's way," the ensign said. "Sometimes, we have to send them into situations where we know they're going to get killed—"

  Bass sharply interrupted him. "A good leader never sends a man into a situation where he knows the man will get killed."

  "It happens all the time," Baccacio snapped back, to cover his shock at the way Bass had spoken to him.

  "Mr. Baccacio," Bass said in a slow, calm voice that was nonetheless threatening, "I don't know how many missions, operations, and campaigns I've been on. I'd have to go and count all of my campaign medals and the comets on my Marine Expeditionary Medal to tell you. Far more than twenty, I do know that. On all but the first few of them, I was an NCO, responsible for the conduct and the lives of the men under me. Not once did I ever knowingly send a Marine to his death. I've seen many Marines die along the way, including more than I'd ever want to think about who were in my charge. But none of them ever died because I told them to go out and get themselves killed. The same holds, to the best of my knowledge, for every platoon and company commander I ever served under, and to every NCO up and down my chain of command. Marine leaders send their men, or lead their men, to kill, not to be killed. We know that some of our Marines might die in an action, but we never deliberately send them to their deaths."

  Baccacio leaned back in his chair and drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table. "So you're insubordinate as well," he said when the silence between the two stretched long enough to become uncomfortable. "As well?"

  "I know about you, Bass. This is your third time as a staff sergeant. You've been busted three times. Once from corporal to lance corporal, once from gunnery sergeant to sergeant, and most recently from gunnery sergeant to staff sergeant." He leaned forward and tapped a fingertip on the tabletop to emphasize his words: "And you have the nerve to say what noncommissioned officers do and don't do? This most recent time," he sat up and threw his arms out, "you were court-martialed for assaulting a civilian! How can you justify assaulting a civilian? What kind of example are you setting for the men when you do that?"

  "If you checked it out closely enough, Mr. Baccacio, you know I assaulted that 'civilian' because he pushed a piece of defective equipment that got a lot of good Marines killed. When I hit that man, I was standing up for a lot of needlessly dead Marines. That's a fine example to give." He leaned forward and reached under the table. His fingers fell exactly where he wanted them to: on the opening of the special pocket on the thigh of his trousers, where he kept his ancient K-Bar.

  Baccacio did his best not to swallow and blanch when his platoon sergeant withdrew the knife—he couldn't believe the man was threatening him. Was he?

  "Do you know what this is, Mr. Baccacio?" Bass asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "It's a K-Bar. This isn't a reproduction, or a museum replica, it's the real thing. This knife is nearly four centuries old."

  The young officer stared at the knife. Its blade was seven inches long. Once, the blade had been an inch and a half wide, but sharpening had worn it down to less than an inch. The metal was blackened. Unlike the knife he carried as a Marine officer, it didn't start tapering until near the end, where it became double-edged. Bass turned the knife so Baccacio could see the legend USMC stamped into one side of the blade, and KA-BAR OLEAN, N.Y. into the other. The knife's hilt was made of broad, leather disks packed tightly together. Some of the washers had dried and split over the centuries and been replaced. The remaining original disks were a deep, shiny black, polished smooth from generations of handling, and looked as hard as gemstone or volcanic glass.

  "There's no way of telling how many of those old American Marines carried this knife before one of them took it home with him when he was discharged," Bass said, "instead of returning it to his company supply sergeant. Those old Marines called themselves a 'band of brothers.' This knife, handed down through generations of Marines, is a symbol of that brotherhood. Carrying it reminds me that I am part of that. We Confederation Marines are the spiritual if not the lineal descendants of those United States Marines. We are no less a 'band of brothers.' Brothers don't send each other out to be killed. "Now, listen up and listen up good, Ensign. The men don't like me because sometimes we wind up in the same place on liberty and I buy a round of drinks. They like me because I take care of them. I don't waste their lives. I stand up for my men and I back them up when they get into trouble. And they know that if they get into trouble of their own making, they have to answer to me for it. They respect me for that, Ensign. They know that's fair.

  "Every man in this company respects every NCO in it, and until you arrived, they respected every officer. You have yet to show anyone that you deserve respect. Nobody knows if you respect them, if you'll back them up, if you're fair. Nobody knows that you won't waste their lives. Here's a lesson you better learn in a hurry. Officers and NCOs who aren't respected don't last long.
Yes, I know what they say, respect the uniform. Well, there's a man inside that uniform. The men will obey the orders that come from the uniform even if they don't respect the man inside it. They're Marines, and that's one of the rules they live under. But if they don't respect the man inside the uniform, they won't obey the orders as well as they will when they come from a man who is respected. Some unrespected officers and NCOs wind up getting killed because nobody's looking out for them. For others, their units develop low morale, which means they get bad marks on their quarterly reports and eventually they get kicked out of the Corps.

  "You said I'm insubordinate, Mr. Baccacio. If that's so, then what I'm about to say must be insubordinate as all hell. I've long maintained that nobody should be selected for commissioning before he's reached the rank of staff sergeant. You've got the training, Ensign. But you don't have the experience to back it up." Bass stood abruptly, stuck the ancient K-Bar back in its scabbard, and left the ward room. He left the hatch swinging idly behind him.

  Ensign Baccacio sat stunned, staring at the space Bass had sat in. Instead of taking full command of the platoon as he'd planned, he had just been read the riot act by an NCO he'd been determined to put in his place.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "Fast frigate" is a class of warship. From its designation, one might reasonably expect a fast frigate to be fast, probably faster than any other starships. And it is—but only in Space-3, normal three-dimensional space. In hyperspace all ships are locked into the exact same amount of travel-time for a given distance; the same 6.273804 ad infinitum irregular number of light-years-per-day speed, known as the Beam Constant, allowed by the Beam Drive, applies equally to a fast frigate and a slow-boat-to-China, assuming that such a scow would be spaceworthy at all. So even though travel by fast frigate rather than by troop transport can cut transit time between planetary systems by several days, the HM3 Gordon spent the same twelve days in hyperspace as did whatever transport ship the rest of 34th FIST followed on.