To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel)

by Mike Shepherd

  Trouble had stationed Gunny on that side of the building with a platoon and orders to see that no police car left.

  About nine, Gunny reported that someone insisted on raising the gate. There had been a small explosion after that, and the Marines had provided quick transport to the nearest hospital.

  The initial report was that the hand would have to come off.

  Trouble’s demolition expert had frowned at that. “A finger, likely, but the whole hand, sir? We didn’t use that much explosives.”

  “Maybe the level of care has something to do with the guy needing it,” Trouble said.

  The demolition man nodded. “Likely he hasn’t been using that hand for all that much good. No doubt the doc doesn’t think he’ll miss it that much.”

  “Kind of what I was thinking,” Trouble said. If they couldn’t get a legal system in place quickly to resolve these age-old festering problems, there would be a lot of rough justice like this, and not all of it would only cost a hand.

  Trouble was prevented from further reflection when one of the inhabitants of the headquarters in front of him stumbled out onto the veranda and shouted, “What da ya think you’re doing here?”

  Trouble came to a loose attention and kind of saluted. “I am Captain Tordon of the Society of Humanity Marine Corps, and I have orders to keep your people off the streets today.”

  The guy shouted for Trouble to do something he loved to have Ruth do, but could hardly do himself. It came out slurred, no doubt from the night before. To confirm Trouble’s opinion, the guy shouting the question reached behind him and waved his hand.

  Someone put a bottle in it, and he drank long and hard before shouting, “We’re the Special Police. No one stands in our way.”

  “We stand here, and we stand in your way.”

  “You can’t.”

  “We can indeed,” Trouble said, doing his best to keep a grin off his face. Maybe he succeeded. “My superiors have ordered us into peacekeeping mode under the charter of the Society of Humanity. Savannah, recently being in arms against the Society and now being surrendered to the same, has been determined to be suffering from civil disorder. You, sir, and your so-called police have been identified as a major cause of civil disorder. You may not leave your headquarters today.”

  “And who’s gonna stop us?” was delayed by another long swig on the bottle

  “We will, sir,” Trouble said, simply.

  “We’ll see about that,” he shouted, and went back inside.

  Over the next hour, more and more Special Police in various stages of inebriation and disheveled dress settled down on the chairs across from the Marines. They flaunted their machine pistols for all the Marines to see.

  Across the street, Marines stood with their backs to the wall of the brick building behind them and kept their hands off their triggers.

  It went that way as the sun rose higher in the sky. The heat of the day came in with hammers, and more bottles got emptied on the veranda.

  “How’s it look in back?” Trouble asked Gunny.

  “Every half hour or so someone comes out to take a look at us and make sure we’re still here. I wave friendly-like, and they scowl and stomp back into their headquarters. How’s it look at your end, sir?”

  “About the same, only less friendly. A lot of drinking going on.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “I didn’t expect today to be good for them,” Trouble said, darkly.

  “See you, sir, when this is over.”

  A half hour later, Trouble’s commlink sounded.

  “Trouble here,” he said.

  “Colonel Ray Longknife here. We just fielded a call from someone who said he was Milassi’s personal secretary. I pointed out that Milassi’s personal office was no longer in this system, and he corrected to say that he was Admiral Whitebred’s personal secretary. The guy was slow, but able to adjust. He ordered us to withdraw you. I refused to do so. He said Whitebred would personally call me back. That was fifteen minutes ago, and I’ve heard nothing.”

  “I doubt you will.”

  “So do I; however, I think your situation is about to reach the boiling point.”

  “So do I, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear the teapot whistling.”

  “Good luck, Captain.”

  “The same to you, Colonel. Trouble out.”

  Now he walked down the line of his troops. “Hold it tight, but you may rest your fingers on the trigger. Safety off. Expect trouble anytime now.”

  He was answered by soft “Ooo-Rahs” and clenched fists.

  Across the street, a phone rang. The guy Trouble had tagged for the boss man answered it on the second ring. From the looks of it, he didn’t much like the answer he got. He slammed the receiver down and glanced around.

  His men met his eyes. Trouble considered them way too bleary, but they weren’t Marines and never would be.

  The boss man nodded.

  As one, the men rose from their chairs, brought their machine pistols up, and opened fire.

  As one, the Marines brought their M-6s up to their shoulders, got a solid sight picture on a gunner, and squeezed off a round.

  Behind Trouble, bullets pocked the red bricks, sending dust flying.

  Across from him, thug after thug took a bullet to the chest or stomach. Some went down, screaming. Others became enraged and fired even as they fell.

  Single shots rang out from the Marines, dropping those who had survived the first volley. Then more single shots took those that were still firing even as they withered on the ground.

  The last machine pistols fell silent. Two shots later, the M-6s did the same.

  “Medic,” came from down the line.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” a woman Marine snapped back. “I’ve bled more from my period. I don’t need no medic. I can handle it myself.”

  “Have a medic look at it,” Trouble shouted, and turned to the carnage across from him. He tapped his commlink. “Memorial Hospital, please.”

  A second later, a pleasant voice allowed that he had reached, “Memorial Hospital. How may we help you?”

  “This is Captain Tordon of the Society of Humanity Marines. We are on peacekeeping duty here. There has been an incident at the headquarters of the State Security Special Police. There are many special police down and bleeding from gunshot wounds.”

  “How many of them, sir?”

  “All of them, I think,” Trouble said.

  “That sounds wonderful. Now don’t you worry about them one bit, sir. We’ll have our ambulances around to collect them real soon now.” She paused. “Oops, they’ve all just left for lunch, sir, but they’ll get right on it as soon as they get back. You did say all of them, didn’t you, sir?”

  Trouble noted that no one had come out of the building once the firing stopped.

  “Yep, it looks like all of them to me.”

  “Well, you just mosey on sir, and we’ll be around real soon.”

  Trouble had put the hospital on speaker for the last bit of their conversation. Two medics listened, then cast each other worried glances as they also took in the carnage across the street.

  Clearly, they were torn between their duty to those in pain and their duty to those these people had put in pain. If the locals took off for lunch when they heard they were needed to care for this bunch of bullies, should the Marines be any more concerned?

  As if to settle the matter, one of the wounded worked his way up on an elbow and tried to raise his machine pistol. Three Marines added more rounds to his wounds, at least one to the head.

  Thus ended the last stand of the Special Police.

  “Mount up, Marines,” Trouble ordered. The medics went where he ordered. With several walking backward to make sure no one else tried a final shot, the Marines headed for their rides home.

  “Gunny, it’s over on this side. You got any action on yours?”

  “Not a damn thing, sir. How’d it go?”

  “Cy
n got a flesh wound that she doesn’t think was all that much, but I’ll have a medic look at it before we roll.”

  “What about the Special Police?”

  “I’ve reported their situation to the nearest hospital. Memorial reports that they’ll have someone right over, once they finish the lunch they all bolted for right after the call came in.”

  “So it’s that way, huh? Ah, sir, are you leaving all those weapons lying around unsecured?”

  Trouble frowned. That was a problem. But one of the street kids was standing there beside the road as the Marines marched by.

  “Hey, kid.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ll pay five hundred dinars for any of those guns brought to the embassy this afternoon.”

  “Five hundred dinars!”

  “You bet.”

  The kid suddenly had a half dozen pals coming out of the woodwork. They lit out for the headquarters.

  As the Marines loaded up, there would be an occasional shot from where they’d come. No doubt, someone didn’t want to part with his weapon.

  Trouble made sure to give Cyn a hand, though he had to be careful. That woman did not want any special help even when he ordered a medic to look at her.

  “Skipper, since you insist on staying underfoot,” she said as the medic cared for her wound, “can you explain to me why all of them are dead or headed that way, and I’m the only unlucky sod that’s shed a drop of good blood this day?”

  “Likely or not, you used up all your luck yesterday,” he said, kind of dodging the question he knew she meant.

  “And glad I am to have used it yesterday. Those damn tanks could have blown a hole in me or flattened me and never even noticed I was there. But, Captain, you know what I mean. They had all those machine pistols blasting away and I’m standing there feeling the brick and mortar flying all around me and I squeeze off one shot, pick a new target and squeeze off a second, and next thing I know, I’ve shot three of them, and there’s no one standing. I’ve got this little sting, and all the rest of these lunkheads are standing around gawking at me ’cause I’m the only one bleeding. What happened?”

  Pinned, Trouble gave the only answer he could. “You ever fired your M-6 on full auto?”

  “No, sir. Gunny on the range said it was a damn waste of money, and if we needed to go full rock and roll, we were already dead anyway, so he wasn’t going to teach us any bad habits.”

  “Corporal, you have my permission, next time you’re at the range, to empty a magazine at full auto. Just don’t do it any time when we’re short of ammo or you need to qualify.”

  “Sir?”

  “You go full auto, and you’re going to spray the area with lead, but you’re not going to hit anything you’re aiming at.”

  “You’re sure of that, sir? I am a Marine and sharpshooter qualified.” Clearly she was, but she sure wasn’t sure of what he’d just told her.

  “Corporal, not you, not Gunny, not many can hit the bull at full auto. You may put one in the bull of the next target over, but none of your own. Not a chance.”

  “So I didn’t have anything to worry about from the drunk goon right across from me? It was more the guy down the way, huh.”

  “Exactly, Corporal. But we put them all down real fast. They never had a chance.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “You got that right, sir.”

  Trouble ordered the mount up and move out. They headed back to the embassy. That evening, they’d get their nightly ration of two beers.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  COLONEL RAY LONGKNIFE was happy with that day’s work. The estimate was that there had been a hundred machine pistols on the veranda of the headquarters of the State Security Special Police and maybe four hundred more in the armory under lock and key.

  He paid for 473 of them that afternoon. Several kids walked in with four of the things slung over their stooped shoulders.

  The Marine guards at the gate took special care to safety the weapons and unload them after the first one showed up at the desk fully loaded and ready to rock and roll.

  There were no incidents requiring medics, however.

  That night, there were no new fires.

  The next morning, answers began to arrive to the messages Colonel Ray Longknife had sent out. Colonel Stewart was only too happy to have his 4th Highlanders ordered to take ship for Savannah. With any luck, their lead elements would arrive in a week. The full battalion would be on the ground by the end of the month.

  Lorna Do promised to flow more units to Savannah right behind the 4th.

  That would get Ray some good men. Now he needed money.

  Buying up nearly five hundred machine pistols to get them off the street had about emptied his wallet. If he was to do more than watch things develop, he needed money, and for that, his father-in-law, Ernie Nuu, came through when he needed him.

  “The attached letter of credit,” Ernie’s message said, “is to establish a fund to improve conditions on Savannah. It’s not to be invested. It’s a donation. Spend it how you see fit. I’ll argue with the tax folks later. But it will help me if you kept some records.”

  Ray would need the money; the city was a mess. Even without the goons roaming it, or maybe just without the worst of the goons, it took Ray a full day to arrange his council of war.

  Next morning, Major Barbara showed up, along with Brother Scott. He had to be rolled into the embassy conference room in a primitive wheelchair. Alice did the pushing, and as soon as she had him at the table, she began to step back toward the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Ruth told the timid soul. “This meeting is about the future of Savannah, and you of all people deserve a seat at the table.”

  Unsure, Alice glanced around but saw only assurance that she belonged here. Still, she settled very uncomfortably into a chair at the large table and seemed intent on swallowing her tongue.

  Ray had all his critical Marine staff present: Trouble, Mary, and Dumont. The last looked only slightly more comfortable than Alice to be at the grown-ups’ table.

  Ruth had come down from the Patton on the same shuttle as Mary. She took her place with solid intent. It would take explosives to get her out of here.

  Becky Graven had her own staff: a junior diplomat and two of her spook watch chiefs. They were just getting coffee and settling into their seats at the table when one of Becky’s spooks brought in a message flimsy.

  “This is interesting,” she said, and instantly had everyone’s attention. “A freighter that just entered the system reported to High Petrograd Control that the liner that passed through the jump just before it, had hardly started accelerating out before it exploded.”

  “Exploded?” Ray snapped.

  “Hold it. There’s more,” Becky said, hand raised for silence. “The second officer of the freighter was a Navy officer in the war. He says the explosion looked like the liner lost its reactor’s containment field. The freighter waited for an hour, but there were no signals from survival pods. We can only assume that all were lost.”

  “Was that the liner that Milassi was taking for his ‘vacation’?” Ruth asked.

  “The very same,” the spook said. “We checked. The only ship that’s used that jump for the last forty-eight hours was the Witch of Endor. If a ship blew up, she’s the only one in line for that honor.”

  Colonel Ray Longknife scowled. “Folks, I damn near got killed by some software glitch left in the Sheffield computer. That Whitebred fellow was hauled off it in cuffs, and the next jump it attempted went all wrong. Now, Whitebred gets off a ship, and it blows itself to bits after its next jump. Mary, do you think this is just a coincidence?”

  “Once, maybe, colonel. But twice around that damned Whitebred, and I’m thinking enemy action.”

  “Yeah,” Ray said, and turned to Becky. “How good are your computer wizards?”

  “We like to think of them as damn good,” the FSO said.

  “Can they protect our embassy system fr
om invasion?”

  “Yes, sir,” both of the spooks at the table said.

  “Can you crack into the city and planet’s system and make sure it’s not sabotaged?”

  That gave the two head spooks pause. “Can we get back to you on that?”

  “In ten minutes,” Ray said.

  They excused themselves. The message carrier had gotten a five-foot head start and added two feet to it before they got out the door.

  “You really think this Whitebred fellow is that dangerous?” Becky asked.

  “No,” Ray said. “He’s nothing but a puppet, but the company he keeps is damn deadly. Also, whoever it is who employs him is too large a question mark for my tastes. He almost wiped out all life on my planet. If he had succeeded, the Unity War would still be going and us or them would be wiping out a planet every week until there was nothing left. No, the man is nothing, but for his next paycheck, he can be as deadly as any rattlesnake.”

  “Not an easy problem to deal with,” Becky said.

  “And he’s been dropped in our lap.”

  “There is an upside,” came in a whisper.

  Every head turned to Alice.

  “Milassi will not be coming back from his vacation,” she said, her eyes wide, her smile pure venom.

  “That is for sure,” Ruth said. “And he took a whole hell of a lot of his people with him,” she quickly added.

  “Straight to hell,” Mary said, also sporting the tight smile of a cobra.

  “Remind me to stay on you ladies’ good sides,” Trouble said.

  One of the spooks returned. He settled at the table and took a sip of his cold coffee before clearing his throat.

  “We are now running a series of checks on the planetary system. We have, of late, been monitoring it rather closely. It seems that we weren’t keeping a close enough eye on it. There have been several viruses inserted into the system in the last twenty-four hours.”