by John Ringo
Powell looked at the SEAL, then at the two women with him, and nodded.
"Semper Fidelis, Flipper," Top said. "Ladies, why don't you sit in one of the seats?"
Miriam looked around the room nervously. The Marines hadn't even changed; they were still in their skinsuits, and the compartment reeked. The smell was strong and strange, the smell of fear and sweat and anger overlaid with oil and ozone. She suddenly felt as nervous as cat at a dog convention.
"Those are where your dead sat," Miriam said. "We cannot fill their space."
"No, but we can give the ones who sit nearest someone to talk to," Mimi said. "Come on, Miriam."
* * *
Almost cold enough to Be. The Ons and Offs flowed more normally. It was Becoming . . .
* * *
Berg looked up at a sudden laugh and saw Mimi Jones sitting across from him.
It was the place that Gunga-Din had occupied for the last six weeks and it shook him just a bit to see the petite young lady sitting in Prabhu's seat. It also, for just a moment, angered him. He'd been trying to avoid looking across the table for the last ten minutes. Nobody had anything to say. The losses were still too fresh.
"What are you doing here?" Berg asked roughly.
"Looking for you," Mimi said. "I wanted to ask you some questions."
"I'm fresh out of answers," Berg said.
"I think you can tell me these," Mimi said. "Whose seat am I sitting in? Who was he? What was he like?"
Berg teared up and turned away.
"His name was Arun Prabhu," Sergeant Jaenisch said. "He was a Hindu who didn't know a grapping thing about it. We called him Gunga-Din."
"Din! Din! Din
"You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
"Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you,
"By the livin' Gawd that made you,
"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" Mimi quoted.
"What?" Guppy asked. Lance Corporal Francis Golupski was the sole survivor of Staff Sergeant Sumerlin's Alpha Team after the attack of the giant crabpus. The shaken lance corporal hadn't said anything since returning to the ship.
"It's the closing lines of the poem," Mimi said gently.
"Yeah, that says it," Hatt said, nodding. "He was a damned fine guy. Never touched a cheeseburger once he found religion."
"He sounds like a fine man," Mimi said. "I wish I'd known him."
"Oh, he was a character, all right," Jaen said, his jaw working. "One time in Singapore . . ."
* * *
Still too much Heat. It could feel the Ons and Offs struggling. If only the heat would not flow to it, constantly. If only the temperature would lower enough. It felt that this had happened before. Vague memories of prior times of cold and then the Heat returning. Cold was Life. The Heat was . . . Death.
* * *
"You've hardly said anything," Mimi half shouted, tracking down Bergstresser where he was standing in the corner. Miss Moon was leading the group in a chorus of "Nearer My God To Thee" while Staff Sergeant Sutherland accompanied on the bagpipes. Sutherland was making heavy weather of it. He'd been fine for "Amazing Grace" but on this one he was having to make it up as he went along. It didn't help that from somewhere a bit more than "one shot of medicinal bourbon" had turned up.
"Not much to say," Berg shouted, then took a suck off a bulb of Gatorade. "We took a lot of losses. Most of the people I'd gotten close to in the unit, among others. Too many good people."
"They were your friends," Mimi said.
"No, actually," Berg said. "They were my buddies. I hated more than half of them. But that didn't mean I wouldn't rather have died than them. That's what being a buddy means in the military."
"I was told, by others, that more would have died if it hadn't been for you," Mimi said. "Does that help, at all?"
"No," Berg admitted. "I was just doing my job. I couldn't save Mammoth. I didn't stop the crabpus from taking Drago and Crow and Lacey. I couldn't save Candle-Man or Summer. Nobody could. I hate that God damned planet."
"But you're going on to others, still," Mimi pointed out.
"Still in question," Berg said. "If the CO turns the ship around, I'm going to withdraw my volunteering. This is a good unit, but . . . Sorry, I don't think I'm cut out to be a Space Marine. Not if it means another world like that."
"But you are good at what you do," Mimi said. "If you don't continue, more people will die because you are not there. Or, the person that takes your place will be lost. Look at Chief Miller."
The chief warrant was in the corner arm wrestling with Lyle. The armorer might have been a paraplegic once, but he'd made up for it in the weight room. The chief wasn't losing, yet, but he wasn't winning, either.
"He had his whole team wiped out in the Dreen War," Mimi said. "He's here. Because this is where he needs to be. This is where you need to be, Two-Gun."
"Don't call me that," Berg said. "I hate that name."
"No you don't," Mimi said. "You're too much of a Marine to hate it."
"Why are you here, Miss Jones?" Berg asked, exasperated.
"Because everybody else is singing and you're sitting in a corner, brooding," Mimi said. "Because you think too much. Because you know too much. Which is why you need to be here, PFC Bergstresser. Because you think. And because the next time you step out that door, you have to be mentally ready for it. Captain Blankemeier needs you that way. Your CO, your first sergeant, your teammates need you that way. I need you that way. Because the next time, the life you might save is mine or Miriam's."
"Or lose," Berg said. "That's another possibility, you know. We lost a scientist and twelve Marines, today. Losing you or Miss Moon is a very real possibility."
"One that's reduced if you're here," Mimi said, lifting up on tiptoe to press her finger into his forehead. "If that is here."
"Okay, okay!" Guppy shouted as the song died. "This is one that I know Danno can't grapp up! March! March! March!"
"For Crow!" Jaenisch shouted drunkenly. "For the Crow-Man! March! March!"
"Okay, okay," Staff Sergeant Sutherland said, taking a drink. "Lemme get my breath."
"I don't know that one," Miriam said.
"Simple lyrics," Sergeant Jaenisch said, grinning. "Don't know if you'll like 'em . . ."
"March?" Mimi asked. "Dirty song?"
"March of Cambreadth," Berg said, his jaw flexing. "It's only a dirty song if you're a pacifist."
"Okay, here goes," Sutherland muttered, warming up the pipes.
"Axes flash, broadswords swing
"Shining armors' piercing ring
"Horses run with polished shield
"Fight those bastards 'til they yield
"Midnight mare, blood red roan
"Fight to keep this land your own
"Sound the horn and call the cry
"How many of them can we make die? . . ."
"You're right," Mimi said when the song was finished. "Not much of a song for a pacifist. Are you a pacifist, Berg?"
"No, ma'am," Berg said.
"So you gonna 'fight as one in heart and soul'?" Mimi asked.
Berg looked around the compartment, empty though it was of a lot of people, and admitted what he'd been fighting for a long time. He didn't want to be anywhere else. It didn't seem to be the right response to losing so many friends, but it was what he truly felt in his heart.
"Hymn!" Guppy shouted, standing up and swaying and putting his hand over his heart. "The Hymn for God's Sake! We haven't sung the Hymn!"
"Damn straight!" Sutherland shouted. "I think I've got that set to bag—"
"NO!"
"Be that way!"
"THE SPACE MARINE'S HYMN!" Berg suddenly bellowed.
"The what?" Top asked, his eyes wide.
"The Space Marine's Hymn, Top," Berg said, his face hard. "Come on, you know that one, right Top?
Berg put his hand over his heart and opened his mouth.
"From the halls of Montezuma to the stars of Ori Three,
"We will fight our planet's battles in space, on land, and sea.
"First to fight for rights and freedom, and to keep our honor clean,
"We are proud to claim the title of Allied Space Marines . . . "
When Berg was finished the first sergeant's mouth was still open at the butchery of his beloved Corps' hymn but the Marines were insane.
"TWO-GUN! TWO-GUN!"
"Say again, Brain!"
"Allied Grapping SPACE MARINES! Oo-rah!"
"All hands! All hands! Prepare for maneuvering. Next stop, 61 Cygni binary system!"
"Clear the compartment, Space Marines," the first sergeant said. "Lock it down. PFC Bergstresser, if I could have a brief moment of your time . . ."
24
"From the Forest Moon of
61 Cygni Alpha Five"
Doesn't Scan
"Stable orbit around 61 Cygni Alpha established."
"Last stop, sir," Bill said, sighing. "And I don't expect to find much, here. Binary star system with Cygni Beta about a light-year and a half away. Since that right there would suggest not much planetary formation and given that they're both dwarfs . . ."
"Got to look," the CO said. "I'll be in my office while what's left of planetology does its thing."
* * *
"Well, looky there," Runner said, nodding.
"What?" Kristopher asked. He was watching the take from the secondary telescope.
"Two gas giants," Runner replied. "Sending coordinates. Zoom in on the one marked Alpha. I have a feeling."
"And your feeling is confirmed," Kristopher said after a moment. "Lots of moons. Outer edge of theoretical life zone, though."
"Yep," Runner said. "But look at the spectra. We've got peaks at four hundred thirty, four hundred eighty, six thirty, and six seventy-five nanometers. All the chlorophyll peaks. It's green everywhere! Zooming in on scope one."
"Damn, Steve," Kristopher said after a moment. "Now that is the forest moon of Endor."
"We got us a name for the planet," Runner said, picking up the comm. "Dr. Beach, planetology. We have a live one."
* * *
"Jesus Christ, I refuse to make any predictions anymore," Weaver said, examining the large moon the ship orbited. "What did we overlook? We passed up a couple of binary systems."
The gas giant the moon circled was a super-massive Jovian, right on the edge of being a red dwarf and, thus, with its own radiated heat. In fact, the "planet" almost argued for the Cygni binary system being some sort of dwarf cluster.
But the moon was a treasure. The spectral analysis indicated that the biology was Chloro Alpha, the same as Earth and different from the Adar Chloro Bravo. Tectonic with limited but apparently deep oceans, the moon looked not unlike Earth with a bit less water and more land. There were clouds, oceans, mountains, and arid zones. But most of the moon appeared to be covered in massive forests. Of course, so was the Earth before it was cleared.
It looked, remarkably, as Earth must have looked prior to the late middle ages before humans got to clearing land on a wide scale.
"It sure looks inviting," the XO said. "Let's just hope it doesn't have any of those damned crabpus."
"Again, not going to make any predictions, sir," Bill replied. "Nothing is weirder than reality."
"Conn, Planetology."
"Go, Planetology," the XO replied.
"Got something interesting on the ground scope, sir," Runner replied. "Set screen to Scope Four."
The XO hit the keys and then shook his head.
"Jackpot."
Clear on the screen was a city that straddled a river not far from one of the smaller oceans. It wasn't much by modern standards but it had some streets paved with stone and some large buildings. The resolution of the scope was high enough that they could see beings and vehicles, apparently pulled by animals, on the screen but that was about all they could get. There was no detail of the beings moving on the streets except that they appeared to be wearing thick coats.
"Somebody had better alert Miss Moon that she's up," the XO said. "I need to call the CO."
* * *
"This we have an SOP for," the XO said, setting down a thick manual.
"I've read it, sir," Bill said. "I actually was on the committee that recommended against using it, but that's besides the point."
"Why didn't you want to use it?" the CO asked curiously.
"Mostly because it's too restrictive, sir," Bill replied. "If they'd given just the outline, I wouldn't have an issue. But they tried to imagine anything that could possibly happen and have an SOP response. We've already gone way beyond anything in that manual. Among other things it does not cover tickling a giant crabpus to let the ship go or it would have recommended having explosives on board. Face it, sir, we're going to be the ones writing the manual. I'd suggest going to the section on preindustrial contact, look at the outline and ignore the appendixes. Later, when we've got an idea what we're actually doing, we can write an appendix that isn't the dreamings of some NASA egghead."
"Preindustrial, preindustrial, N-O . . . ," the XO muttered. "They don't have a chapter on preindustrial contact."
"Low-tech?" the CO asked.
"Nope."
"Savages?" Spectre added. "Barbarians? Slope-heads?"
"Nothing, sir. Wait! What in the hell is 'developmentally challenged technology?' "
Bill sighed. "You begin to see my problems with it, sir."
"The outline has six items," the XO said. "Planetary space survey, cultural analysis, initial ground survey, limited communications contact, primary contact and a chapter on inter-tribal diplomacy."
"Check out the planet and what you can find of the cultures from space," Bill translated. "Check out the planet on the ground, find some savages cut off from your main contact to sell beads to, then find the main contact and establish communications. Don't get involved in a war. Unless it seems strategically useful to us."
"Do we have any beads?" the CO asked.
"Yes, sir," Dr. Beach said. "As well as other cultural exchange items."
"There's a big warning about cultural contamination," the XO continued. "Do we have a reg on that?"
"None written," the CO said, glancing at the manual. "That's a supplementary recommendation, not a reg. Commander Weaver?"
"Somebody's been watching too much TV, sir," Bill said, sighing again. "They don't want us teaching the locals to make gunpowder or whatever. If we make contact, cultural contamination is impossible to avoid. Short-term effects can be devastating to lower-tech cultures, especially very stagnant ones. Long-term effects are usually progress to a level superior to their prior condition, but the PC crowd likes the cultures just the way they are. The noble savage and all that. And the intermediate consequences can be bad: wars, famines, disease. But the life of the average Japanese, today, is a hell of a lot better than under the Meiji. It's a big philosophical argument."
"We're going to need more guidance," the CO said. "In the meantime, let's get cracking. Drop two satellites in a ball-and-twine orbit and get started on mapping this planet to a fare-thee-well."
"Yes, sir," Dr. Beach replied.
"You're aware, sir, that we might have already made contact," Bill interjected. "Depending upon their tech level, they could have telescopes capable of detecting the ship in orbit."
"Oh," the CO said. "How very . . . glorious."
* * *
"There," Journeyman Agoul said, stepping back. "It's against Sumar. The shadow moving across the Belly."
"I see it," Master Jadum replied, his hands rubbing together rapidly. "Fascinating! Do my old eyes deceive me, or does it appear to be made of metal?"
"I believe the same, Master," Agoul said, wrinkling his nose. "It does appear to be made of metal. And I believe I can see some formations on it that are very strange. I hate to even suggest this, but I believe that it may be . . . made."
"I cannot believe that such a thing could be made without it being heretical," Jadum said, stepping back and
working his hands again. He rubbed at his nose, rapidly, then shivered. "I must take this finding to the queen, but if it is a made thing, the priests will be most unhappy."
"My fears as well, Master," Agoul replied. "Do you wish me to take the word to the Court? Better my head than yours, Master."
"No," Jadum said, twitching his ears in negation. "I doubt that the queen would allow the priests to kill me simply for finding such a thing. You, on the other hand, they might and think nothing of it."
"There is another question, Master," Agoul said. "Could it be the Demons returning?"
"I'm sure many will think that," Jadum said. "We can only hope that it is not so. It has been centuries since the last Demon attack. Let us hope it is not they."
"Or that they bring them, Master."
* * *
"How we doing on comestibles, XO?" the CO asked.
"We're getting low on water and O2 again," the XO said. "But if we can get down to the planet any time soon, that's not an issue. And we're getting hot. But same thing."
"Miss Moon?" the CO asked. "Have you completed the cultural survey?"
"I'm not sure that it'll be done any time soon," Miriam replied. "Probably not in my lifetime. But I've identified several civilizations. I can't get much of an idea of borders, if this society even has those, but there are basically five large civilizations on the planet. Two of them seem to be about the same technology level and might be in contact. But there are large gaps that look undeveloped between them. The other three are separated from those two, and each other, by big oceans. We've gotten some looks at their boats and the COB said he didn't think they could go across oceans. Based on Earth history, I'd say we should contact one of the two groups that is close to each other on the big main continent."
"After initial survey and limited communications group contact," the XO pointed out.
"Agreed," the CO said. "Commander Weaver, recommendations on initial survey?"
"There is a group of islands in the temperate zone of the planet," Bill replied. "One of them is quite extensive and has what appears to be a stable zone near both a river and an ocean. That is on the southeastern tip of the island. While a scan of the island did show some fires on the northern portions, the southeast appears clear of natives. There is one anomaly, though."