by J. L. Doty
Sturpik, Tomlin, and their two companions stopped well out of reach of the wrench. “Well, Ballin,” Sturpik said. “Got up a little early today, never thought I’d run into you.”
“Ya,” Tomlin said. “Pure coincidence. But now that we’re here, I guess we can take care of that unfinished business we got. You ready to pay up?”
York said, “You know I don’t owe you anything. You made me take that stuff. You tricked me. And you told me I was supposed to hit Straight back, stand up for myself like on the streets.”
Sturpik closed his eyes and shook his head sadly. York saw that they weren’t going to walk away this time. “What I told you don’t matter, and it don’t matter how or why you got the stuff. It was our stuff, and you lost it, so you owe us five hundred imperials.”
York said, “I told you I don’t have that kind of money.”
“And I told you that you can make it up by helping us out.”
“No,” York said. “I’m not going to help you.”
Tomlin grinned, and York realized he’d wanted to hear that answer, that he was enjoying this. “Then we’re going to take payment in another way.”
He reached into his tunic and pulled out a wrench even bigger than York’s. Sturpik and the other two produced plast bars about as long as their forearms. They spread out and the two strangers edged forward cautiously, coming at York from the sides, while Sturpik and Tomlin clearly intended to take him head on. Fear clutched at York’s stomach as he realized he might not survive this.
Motion at the far end of the mess hall near one of the entrances caught his eye. Sissy and Chunks stepped through the hatch there. Sissy started when she saw York, waved her hand, and said rather loudly, “York, what a coincidence finding you here.”
Sturpik, Tomlin, and their two friends turned, saw the two marines walking toward them, and quickly hid their weapons in their clothes.
Sissy spoke as she walked. “Chunks and me thought we’d catch an early breakfast.”
The two marines stopped about three paces from Sturpik. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Sissy smiled at him, not a friendly smile. “Like I said, me and Chunks are looking for a little early breakfast.”
Tomlin stepped toward her. “Mess hall doesn’t open for another hour. Come back then.”
She made a point of looking carefully at each of the four men, one at a time. “Well then, we’ll just have a little caff to kill the time. But what are you doing here?”
Sturpik said, “We got business with the kid.”
“What kind of business?”
“None-of-your-business kind of business.”
Marko and Cochran stepped through another entrance chatting amiably. Marko didn’t seem to be surprised at the small crowd he found there. “The sarge and me,” he said, “we’re going to have a little caff.”
Cath and three large marines stepped through another entrance. She announced, “Me and the boys here are in the mood for a little caff.” They sat down at a mess table, all of them on the same side, all pointedly watching Sturpik and his friends.
Stark, Durlling, and Zamekis stepped through the same hatch Sissy and Chunks had used. Zamekis announced, “I feel like a little caff.” They sat down at a table, and like the marines, they all sat down on one side watching Sturpik and his friends.
Sturpik leaned toward York and whispered, “We’re not done here.”
He and his friends walked out of the mess hall together.
Cochran said, “Ballin.”
Only then did York realize he was standing in a crouch holding the wrench. He straightened and tried to hide the wrench behind his back. “Yes, Sergeant.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be scrubbing the deck?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“You sure don’t look like you’re scrubbing the deck.”
“Sorry, Sergeant.”
York stowed the wrench back in the duffel, got down on his hands and knees, and returned to scrubbing the deck. Interestingly enough, no one ever got any caff, and they all stayed until the shift ended, only leaving the mess hall when York did.
The next day, York passed Tomlin in a corridor going the other way and almost didn’t recognize him. He walked with a limp, one arm in a sling, and his face was covered in puffy, bluish-black bruises, one eye swollen completely shut. His nose looked like it had been mashed completely, then swollen to twice its normal size. Whatever had happened to him, York thought it strange that he hadn’t been patched up with all the miraculous medical treatment they had on ship.
The day after that, he saw one of Sturpik and Tomlin’s two friends, and the fellow was worse off than Tomlin. Again, he wondered why the fellow hadn’t received better medical treatment. Then he recalled that when he got the lash, they had refused to patch his back up, wanted him to live with his punishment.
York hunted down Marko, found him seated at a command console. He didn’t beat around the bush, but asked him straight out, “What happened to Tomlin?”
Marko frowned, considered York for a moment, then said, “This ain’t the streets, kid, no matter what you’ve been told. There’s people here got your back, so you make sure you got theirs.”
York said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
Again, Marko considered him carefully, as if trying to decide something. “I had a suspicion you got suckered, and then I began to suspect who did the suckering. Pure coincidence me and Cochran were standing just outside the mess hall, heard every word you and them lowlifes said. And them marines got a pretty simple idea of justice.”
“But Sturpik,” York said. “He won’t just walk away.”
Marko leaned back in his seat, folded his hands, and looked at York for a long, hard moment. “No, he won’t. He’s a hard case, been a problem for a long time. Maybe it’s early enough for his friends to learn a valuable lesson, but not Sturpik. Funny thing about Sturpik, though, he’s been AWOL since that night, probably slipped and fell right out through an air lock.”
After that, York didn’t have to scrub any more decks. He suspected that Marko had arranged for him to be scrubbing the mess hall that night, by himself, on first watch. The older man had used York as bait to get Sturpik to reveal his hand. Interestingly enough, York never saw Sturpik again.
York managed to stay out of trouble for the next year. He continued to practice in the pod and flight simulators, frequently configuring the pod simulator like a gunboat turret so he could stay in practice. That turned out to be a wise move, because once they got a replacement for Three, the marines were still short a gunner whenever they needed a full complement, so the captain loaned York to them quite regularly.
Rodma continued his flight training whenever they had some slack time down on the surface of a planet. And when he joined the marines, York got to see more of Sissy, another benefit of being loaned out to them, though he had to be careful about that. The marines were casual about their bodies, and both men and women shared the same showers. Once, after a simple mission to supply an outpost down on an airless, nameless planet, York made use of the marine showers. He was just finishing up when Sissy stepped into the showers and began soaping down with chem wash. At the sight of her bare body, her round hips, small breasts, and dark brown nipples, York felt an erection coming on and he exited quickly, covering his crotch with a towel. He liked seeing Sissy, though she would never think of him as anything but the kid. She probably already had a boyfriend, likely one of the marines.
York also kept scoring pod kills, though the only time he again scored three in a single battle was at Arman’Tigh. But that was a massive encounter that involved more than a hundred ships, with multiple engagements over a period of two days. By his fourteenth birthday, he had four full chevrons on each arm and got a promotion to spacer second class, and two days after that he scored another kill.
At gunner’s blood, Zamekis looked at the new half chevron cut into his arm and said, “Quite the hotshot, aren’t you?”
Marko slapped her on the back and handed her a beer. “I tell you, Meleen, it’s always the young ones who are the best. I’ve seen it before. Don’t know what it is, but sometimes a kid like York turns out to be a natural. Couple more years, he’ll lose the edge. He’ll still be good, but never again as good as now.”
York had grown another ten centimeters in that year, and now looked most of the adult men straight in the eye. He even stood taller than some, but he was lanky and thin.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stark told him. Several gunners were seated in the barracks playing cards. “My younger brother did that, grew straight up first, then filled out later.”
Stark frowned and a sad look crossed his face. He lowered his eyes to the deck and said, “He was killed in a firefight somewhere in Ganymede sector last year.”
“Sorry,” York said.
Stark shook off his melancholy. “Don’t worry about it, kid. For him, it’s over. For us, it goes on.”
They were only a few hours out of Cathan, a major imperial holding, and everyone was looking forward to a few days’ shore leave.
“Ballin,” Straight said as she walked into the barracks. “The marines need you down on Hangar Deck for a drop.”
York looked at his cards. They weren’t worth playing.
Straight said, “You got time to finish the hand.”
“No,” York said, tossing the cards onto the table. “I fold.”
Zamekis asked, “What do they need a gunner for? There aren’t any feddies within thirty light-years of Cathan.”
Straight shrugged. “Beats me. But orders are orders.”
When York stood, she took his place at the table.
Down on Hangar Deck, he retrieved his vac suit from his marine locker and was in the process of running a quick check on its seals when Rodma approached him and said, “Hold on there, Ballin. You won’t need that.” He had a conspiratorial grin on his face.
“What’s up?” York asked.
“Put that thing away,” Rodma said. “You’re riding in the cockpit.”
York frowned and Rodma added, “XO gave me permission to let you ride shotgun. You’re the copilot this drop.”
York spluttered, “Why?”
“Part of the training. Got to pick up some heavy equipment in the Cathan Navy Yard. Ideal place for you to get some real cockpit time. No problems for light-years, nothing to go wrong.”
York found it exhilarating to sit in Three’s cockpit and watch the large doors of the service bay open directly in front of him. Then the docking gantry shoved Three out into the blackness of space and they drifted away from the ship’s hull.
“It’s all yours,” Rodma said.
“Mine?” York asked.
“Ya, you’re going to pilot her.”
“But I’m just the copilot.”
“Copilot’s got to be able to fly just as good as the pilot, so she’s all yours.”
York hesitated for an instant as they drifted farther away from Dauntless. But his gut didn’t clench with fear, and while his stomach fluttered with butterflies at first, they disappeared quickly as his training took over.
He brought up a nav summary on his screens, dialed in the coordinates of the navy yard, was about to kick in the drive when Rodma said, “No.”
York took his hands off the control yoke, wondering what he’d done wrong.
“You’re taking us down on manual all the way. It’s the only way to learn.”
Behind them Sissy said, “Glad I don’t have to be a pilot.”
She, Chunks, and Meg’s replacement were seated in the aft cabin.
Chunks said, “Don’t you get our asses killed, Ballin.”
Interestingly enough, the friendly teasing calmed York. Piloting the gunboat turned out to be quite similar to piloting a gunboat turret, though this was his first time in the vacuum of space with none of the aerodynamic surfaces active, and he needed to consciously think in three dimensions. But once they hit atmosphere and the reentry plasma dissipated, the only difference from previous descents was that he was bringing the boat down from twenty kilometers, not just one.
When he had the boat parked on the tarmac of the navy yard, Rodma said, “You’re on leave. Just be back here at oh five hundred in three days. You’re flying this bucket back up once we’ve got her loaded.”
Sissy had come prepared with a spare marine tunic that fit York reasonably well. “You’re coming with us, Ballin,” she said. “You haven’t partied with the marines for months.”
She and Chunks led York to a marine bar called—York was not surprised to learn—The Drop Zone. By the time they got there, it was already quite late. They joined a group of Dauntless’s marines at a cluster of tables, drank, and played cards.
One of the female prostitutes caught York’s eye and gave him an inviting look. She was quite beautiful, very voluptuous, but for some reason she just didn’t appeal to him. He caught himself looking across the table at Sissy. The first time York had met her, he’d thought she had a hard look about her, but at some point that impression had disappeared. He liked the way she wore her hair in a buzz cut on one side, and over the ear on the other.
He suddenly realized she was watching him look at her. He looked away quickly, stood, and carried his beer to the bar. It was still half full, but he needed an excuse to get away from the table. He leaned against the bar and tried to muster some excitement for the prostitute.
“Ballin,” Sissy said as she came up and leaned against the bar next to him. “Why were you staring at me?”
“I wasn’t staring at you,” he lied. “I was just thinking.”
The place was crowded and noisy, and they were oddly alone in the middle of a lot of marines. She took her elbows off the bar and turned to face him. “Look at me.”
He turned to face her, and for the first time realized he was now taller by several centimeters.
“Have you ever been with a real girl?” she asked.
He stumbled over his words, “Well … ya … of course—”
“No,” she said, stepping forward, standing uncomfortably close to him. “A real girl. A girl girl, not a prostitute girl. Someone who expects to have as good a time as you.”
“I … uh … well—”
“That’s what I thought.” She closed the gap between them, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and enjoyed every second as their tongues fought a very pleasant little war. It wasn’t like any kiss he’d ever had before. It was hot and passionate, but it also meant something.
When they separated, she looked him in the eyes and said, “I’m no whore.”
It hurt that she assumed he might think that. “I never thought of you that way.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I just had to be sure. Anyway, I have to do something to get you to stop staring at my ass and my tits.”
He shrugged. “I like your ass and your tits.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’d better. Come with me.”
She led him up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, they paid an attendant for a private room. York thoroughly enjoyed taking her clothes off little by little, and they spent the next three days in bed. Sissy was quite instructive.
Chapter 13:
Homework?
York learned that the navy was quite tolerant about relationships between spacers, recognizing that they couldn’t send people out among the stars for months at a time and expect them to remain celibate. There was even a clause in the regs stating that healthy relationships were not discouraged. The powers that be disapproved only if there was a serious discrepancy in rank and one party was subordinate to the other in the chain of command. Sissy’s and York’
s watch rotations frequently kept them apart, but they spent every moment they could find together, and York learned that there was so much more to the act of sex than what he got from a whore. York took a little ribbing from Zamekis, Stark, and Durlling, but it was all in fun, and they seemed to be happy for him.
He started taking an interest in the ship as a whole. He’d spent his first year just trying to survive Sturpik and Tomlin, his second trying to become the best lower-deck pod gunner he could, hadn’t really considered anything beyond the next meal and a place to sleep. But now he wondered why they had gone to Cathan, and before that Arman’Tigh. And he also wondered about the why of it all. When he asked Marko a few questions, the older man glanced around nervously and said, “Be careful, York. Every ship has a couple Admiralty Intelligence agents working under cover. And you don’t want anyone from AI reporting back that you’re questioning why we’re fighting this war. Mess with AI and they’ll charge you with treason. That’s a convenient way for them assholes to get rid of someone asking questions they don’t want asked.”
Surprised that Marko had taken that meaning from his questions, York said, “No, I didn’t mean that.”
Marko’s paranoia did make York wonder why the older man was so fearful of AI. And it occurred to him that he never had heard a reason for the war itself. No one had ever claimed that the Federals were fundamentally evil, or that they intended to conquer the empire and enslave its citizens. But while he wondered about that, he took Marko’s warning to heart and kept his thoughts to himself.
“I meant, why did we go to Cathan?” he said. “And why did we go to Arman’Tigh? And where are we going now, and what’s the purpose of the mission?”
Marko turned to a terminal and pulled up shipnet, which was available from just about any screen. He showed York where the bridge crew regularly posted unclassified information about the ship’s course, heading, and next destination. At the moment, they were on the way to a destination on the front lines to rendezvous with the rest of the Seventh Fleet, though the details of the mission were classified.